


Soak Me In Bleach

by AwokenMonster



Category: Hollywood Undead (Band)
Genre: Angel!Charlie, Angel/Demon AU, Demon!J-Dog, Did you miss my dark twists yet?, M/M, Plot Twist, Soulmates, bear with me, minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:07:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27458473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwokenMonster/pseuds/AwokenMonster
Summary: Angel/Demon AU.My angel,If I could go back in time, I would return to the moment we met and I would tell myself to turn around and get the fuck away from you.Regretfully yours,J-Dog, demon of the void.Demon!J-Dog/Angel!Charlie Scene. E rated for blood and gore.It's in 3rd person POV
Relationships: A surprise - Relationship, J-Dog/Charlie Scene, Johnny 3 Tears/Danny-ish
Comments: 10
Kudos: 6





	Soak Me In Bleach

**Author's Note:**

> Monster: Hi guys! Remember when I posted Golden Beast and said it was my longest fic ever at 20.4k words? Well, Soak Me In Bleach is 22.8k words so it officially beat Golden Beast as my longest one-shot, ever. I have a lot to say about this fic but to avoid spoilers, I will refer to my end notes, instead. This fic took me 5-6 proofreads to fully edit and it's 45 pages so fml. This story has become my baby at this point. Enjoy.
> 
> Just like with Golden Beast, this entire fic was written while listening to several songs;  
> \- Soak Me In Bleach - The Amity Affliction (did this surprise anyone? I mean... the fic is called Soak Me In Bleach for a reason)  
> \- Hollywood Undead ft. Ice Nine Kills ft. Papa Roach - Heart of A Champion  
> \- Solence - Direction
> 
> J-Dog/Charlie, E rated for minor blood and gore.

Hell’s life was a bore. It was a pure shitshow cycle of torturing souls, taking some pleasure in the screaming and punishing. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you might find a soul begging for mercy. Nothing’s more fun in Hell than pretending to give a crap before you break their spirit and their hopes for redemption. There was really far more to it than having a bunch of souls scream in a vat while you poked a pitchfork at them and Hell’s fire roared around everyone. The skill of eternal torture and the breaking of a sinful soul was far more sophisticated than that. J-Dog had mastered it over the decades of being a purebred demon – aka a demon who never lived as a human. J-Dog was a simple demon. He liked his deaths bloody and gory, human bodies mutilated and souls screaming in excruciating agony while he found their weaknesses to exploit.

Though ripping the soul’s confidence to shreds had been boring lately. Really. Fucking. Boring. Hell’s life had been such a bore that J-Dog tore out his own spine just to kill some time healing himself. _How do you heal from tearing out your own- wait, how the hell did he even do that by himself?_ Don’t even try to imagine it. Demons have very strange interests and well, it was just something to do as an immortal celestial.

“You need to stop mutilating yourself when you’re bored.”

“Sure, I’ll take that advice and drop it into the Hellfire on my way out”, J-Dog grumbled. “I don’t do this for fun.”

J-Dog sat on a table, shirt in his lap, back turned towards Danny who was holding a stapling gun as he leaned over the table, a look of pure concentration on his face. He moved away, holding the stapler towards the sky. “Shut the fuck up or I’m gonna staple you to the table.”

Danny’s suturing resources were absolutely horrid as there was no such thing as health care available in Hell. For demons, it was all to each their own so why would any demon help one another out anyway? Danny had no actual medical tools so he’d just stapled J-Dog back together. Just to make sure he would heal back into his former shape and not some demon-monster blob dragging itself over the ground. Danny grinned at his own thoughts.

“Do it”, J-Dog grinned. “At least I would have some purpose trying to unstick myself from the table.”

Danny shot a staple through his shoulder. J-Dog yowled and whipped his head around. “DUDE.”

“What?” Danny’s face had ‘smug’ written all over it.

“What did you do that for?” J-Dog stood up and turned around. He wrenched his fingers into the wound rip the staple out and flicked it at Danny.

Danny shrugged, not fazed by the staple bouncing off his nose. “You’re a moron. Only stupid humans want a purpose in life. Are you a stupid human?”

“Call me a human again, see what happens”, J-Dog growled as he balled his fists. Danny’s eyes glowed, anticipating a fight and bracing himself for it as he put down the stapler and raised his fists but J-Dog rolled his eyes. “At least I don’t stir the pot when I’m bored.”

“Come on. Fight me”, Danny responded as he lowered his fists, disappointed he didn’t get to fight. “Let me rip you apart for once.”

“You’ve got some issues, dude”, J-Dog chuckled. He patted Danny on the shoulder before he picked up his shirt. “Thanks for patching me up, dude.”

“How can you even stand, right now?” Danny wondered. He grabbed J-Dog’s shoulder to have a look at his stapled back. J-Dog pushed him away and put his shirt back on. “Hellbreds, man. We are made from broken parts.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “You are such a sap for a demon.”

“Your opinion is once again, not noted”, J-Dog said. “I’m going back to work.”

“What’s work bringing today?” Danny asked, following J-Dog until they were outside. Don’t be fooled by the ‘outside’. Hell was no cosy city with little houses and pits of fire to keep them warm like cutesy little campfires. No. Hell was a wasteland. No one gave a shit about anyone but themselves. Where did demons sleep? They slept on the ground, on the hard rocks between the fire roaring in between every crevice of the place. Danny was one of the few people who had carved out a boulder to make himself a ‘house’ with some supplies to work his job better – read: weapons to hunt down the due soul contracts. Danny was a hunter class demon which really only meant his job held a lot more fighting than J-Dog’s as a torture class demon. Usually because J-Dog reaped souls of dead people while Danny reaped souls of living people with a soul contract. Anyway, there was really only a table present in the Danny Cave. It was all the furniture he needed. Oh, hold that thought of “why isn’t Danny afraid of other demons stealing his shit?”. Because Danny was one of the biggest, most badass soul hunters in this district of Hell. Stealing from him was a really bad idea. Or a good one if you wanted to find your organs distributed over all of Hell’s districts.

“I’m in luck”, J-Dog mentioned as he stood just outside the Danny cave. “I’m reaping some souls later today. Wanna join?”

“Wish I could, dude”, Danny sighed. He remained in the opening of the cave. “But Johnny’s riding my ass-…”

“As usual”, J-Dog interrupted him with a grin. Danny grimaced. “Not funny.”

“Come on, you and Johnny have a thing going on. Everybody knows”, J-Dog teased. Danny shook his head, held the door in his hand. “Nah, man, Johnny’s been supplying me, getting me new weapons. Soul contracts stuff.”

“So no riding your ass?”

J-Dog had his back turned to Danny now, ready to leave.

“Not from him”, Danny and J-Dog turned his head around quickly. “Wait, so you’ve got someone else?”

“Bye, J-Dog”, Danny grinned, going back inside and smacking the door in J-Dog’s face. Man, he’d been pretty smart to make his cave a door too. So if demons didn’t care for anyone but themselves, then why did Danny help J-Dog out? Well, you kinda fraternise with demons who have the same fucked up energy as you.

Plus they served the same district of Hell. Hell was divided in several districts, each ruled by a high-class demon directly under the Devil’s command. The high-class demon was responsible for keeping track of the souls, for delegating their demons and so forth. Obviously commanding an army that only wants to do whatever they want to do, is not ideal, so the districts had an on-going competition with one another to collect the most souls and snatch souls from under each other’s noses in the human realm. No demon wanted to lose from a rival demon, so the dysfunctional bunch was somewhat efficient in soul collecting now. It was just easier to work together than to be a total shitshow of individual demons, going about their own business.

J-Dog rolled his eyes at Danny’s closed door and walked off, still a little unsteady from his rapidly healing, stapled wound. He really had to keep work going though. Johnny had no compassion for a demon skipping out on work over injuries. Especially self-inflicted boredom injuries.

J-Dog checked the time, the red numbers changed slowly just beneath the skin of his wrist.

2:01:20

…

2:01:19

…

2:01:18

…

2:01:17

…

He sighed. Still 2 human realm minutes to kill with meaningless soul torturing before he could reap in the ethereal plane of human realm. Time in Hell was a lot slower than time in the human realm. Two minutes for humans went by in the blink of an eye – unless they were waiting for microwaved food or planking – but the two minutes in the human realm, were a long enough time in Hell to really get some work done. He didn’t really feel like ripping the souls to shreds for now so he decided to delegate some of the newer demons-to-be into completing the task for him. Hell’s hierarchy didn’t just consist of high-class demons or low-class demons, though the torture class and hunter class were both part of the low-class branch. Aside from those, there was a lower creature that stood between the torture demons and the sinful souls. Sometimes a human’s sinful soul was twisted beyond recognition and shifted into a Critter class demon. Critters weren’t really demons, it was very insulting to J-Dog to call a Critter a demon, but the only reason they were called demons, was because Critters eventually shifted into full-fledged torture demons. These human-born demons were slaves of their original torturer until their Critter phase of the process was over.

In exchange for what?

For not being tortured anymore, obviously.

J-Dog walked past his area of torture. He’d gathered the souls in a cage above the fire. The cage could drop any moment and go back up. You see, the thing with these souls is the exact same thing as with their animal form back in the human reality. And yes, animals because humans are just animals with the ability to think of themselves as the better species when in reality, their “I’m special because I have a complex language” is about as special as the dung beetle breeding in poop. Anyway, the thing with these animals is that they are very keen on their homeostasis and want to do all they can to maintain it. Part of maintaining it, is predicting the environment and experiencing a sense of control. When J-Dog put their cage up there and made the cage drop erratically, he took away both the predictability of the environment and the tiny bit of sense of control they had over their situation by bracing themselves for the drop.

Torture was really a form of art. Or a science maybe. Why not both?

“Yo moron”, J-Dog yelled at one of his Critters leaning over the edge to look into the pit of the Hellfire. The demon was startled by the voice of his boss and fell into the pit. J-Dog sighed and hid his face in his hands. “I can’t with these fucking idiots.”

Falling into the Hellfire was probably the worst fate for a demon because there was no way out. The dumbasses continuously scorched their skin and charred their bones while healing and trying to crawl out of the pit. When they finally did manage to crawl out of the pit after weeks of suffering and barely inching forward in the heat, they had weeks of healing left to do before they could as much as utter a coherent word without wailing in pain from the strain on their burns.

J-Dog shrugged it off and found another one of his Critters. “You’re on stabbing duty. I’m feeling lazy today.”

The being blinked, nothing but a weirdly creepy, toothy grin on its face. Critters were mute, nearly mindless. They could only follow orders. Their skin was a ghastly white, their eyes were empty holes with blood dripping out of the sockets and their mouths were full of blade-like fangs. The Critter stage was a weird phase. It was like the sinful soul’s transformation wasn’t complete yet so their independence or ability to think just switched off before becoming an actual demon. If the twisting of the sinful soul had happened in the human realm, the Critter phase would have most likely only lasted several minutes before the soul became a demon, but time in Hell was just a lot more different. It was only a temporary stage. Though this being stared at J-Dog with a grin and said nothing.

“Dude, just fucking torture the fuck out of them. I’ll find someone to help you but Steve fell in the fucking pit when I yelled at him.”

The Critter stared his empty eyes out at J-Dog, grin suddenly gone. J-Dog smirked. “Yeah, that can happen to you too if you don’t do as I say, dude. Now go do your job before you regain brains and become an actual demon.”

The Critter finally walked off and J-Dog looked after him. He’d never understand human-born demons and their Critter phase.

It took J-Dog a hot minute but eventually he had round up a good group of Critters under his command to scare the souls and hurt them in deliciously twisted ways. He could almost _hear_ their screeching. He acquired the information on the soul contracts he had to reap and then he was all set for leaving Hell. J-Dog checked the time again.

0:00:11

…

0:00:10

…

Just ten hundredths of a second more before he was needed. It was about time he left for the human realm. Dude was about to kick the bucket so he might as well go find him before some asshole demon from the rival district snatched the soul away from under his nose.

Anyway, ready for the human realm. J-Dog took a deep breath and felt his shapes blur, shift and twist. The crackling of Hell’s fire made way for a deafening silence, droning in his mind as if he was walking under water. The outlines of his surroundings seemed unstable as every object in his proximity shifted like an old cartoon. Everything was in greyscale and slow motion to the point of still life before his eyes. The slow motion was a fun little effect of reaping souls but he could visit the human realm in real-time as well. There was no movement in the clouds. He looked down at his clawed hands. He was the only clear shape in this torture mode of the ethereal plane in the human realm. The ethereal plane was like a different dimension to the humans. They couldn’t see it or touch it. Though the ethereal plane had a torture mode and a hunter mode, depending on which demon used his powers to enter the human realm. Both modes looked _very_ different from one another. J-Dog moved his hands beneath his vision. He was the only colour in the greyscale world, though his colour seemed less saturated here. It was night and it only caused the greyscale to look even darker than it already was.

Everything seemed to be covered in a thick haze with the moonlight not shining as bright as it should through the dark veil of this ethereal plane. J-Dog was surrounded by the New York skyscrapers, the vibrant night life dimmed by the lack of progressing time and bright colours. J-Dog inhaled, feeling as if he were breathing in vacuum space before his body adjusted and he could breathe at ease.

On the ground lay the body of a man. At least, the remains of the body with the soul still attached to it. It meant no demon had gotten here before he did. The body was mangled with multiple crushed bones and J-Dog could see the imminent shock on bystanders’ faces as he had landed in between the man’s death and others’ responses to it in time. J-Dog crouched down. The blood that spilled from the body, was a vibrant crimson contrast against the greyscale. His soul gave the dead man’s body a ghastly look as white covered its unclear, shifting outlines. J-Dog pulled on the white veil, seemingly absorbing it as he reaped it into a vial. There was a ghostly shriek as it was ripped from the body and then there was nothing. J-Dog waited for the moment of silence to pass before he got up. Just a second of peace before he stood at full height. A glistening caught his eye, leading his gaze upward. It was just an immense contrast to the dark surrounding. A pure white light shone atop of the skyscraper before him.

He squinted his eyes against the light, eyes glowing a dark red when the white light split its shape into two massive wings. _Angel._

The white wings stretched out wide and twisted, launching the body it carried into the air, soaring downwards, right at J-Dog. The demon bared his sharp canine teeth, hissing at the imminent danger. He took a few steps back, protecting the vial. Before the angel reached him, he slowed down to levitate, merely a few feet away from J-Dog with the body between them. He landed on his feet gracefully, entire presence shining with divine energy as he folded his massive plush, white wings on his back. The feathers lightly touched the ground as he walked closer to the body, miraculously not affected by the dirt of the city grounds.

J-Dog could feel he was holding his breath. He had never seen an angel from afar, let alone see one from up close. He felt the need to hide, to run, to stay away from it but he found himself struck with awe at his radiant presence. The divine creature was an immense danger. Demons may rip each other apart and heal but an altercation between an angel and demon could end in eternal Purgatory. _Death for celestials_.

The angel didn’t even seem to notice J-Dog as he crouched down by the body, eyebrows furrowed. He sighed, a pained expression on his face. “You’ve reaped his soul.”

His voice was pleasant and calm but it took J-Dog a second to register he was talking to him. “His soul belongs in Hell. He committed suicide.”

The angel looked up and into J-Dog’s eyes. Any hostility J-Dog had felt towards this unusual meeting between angel and demon, was knocked straight out of him when he stared into the purest blue eyes he had ever seen in his life. He took a step closer. “Why would an angel come see a dead man?”

The angel averted his eyes to the ground, returning to a standing position. It dawned on Jay. “You’re a guardian class. He was your soul to protect.”

“He was”, the angel mused. “I turned my back on him a second too long and now he’s gone. Must be a wonderful day for you, Hellbred.”

J-Dog had never reaped a protected soul before. He had never faced a guardian angel before. This man had a guardian angel watching over him, but he had jumped off a skyscraper to kill himself. Suicide was a sin and therefore his soul was condemned to an eternity in Hell, though the guardian angel could access his soul and take it to Heaven too. Whoever of the two got there first. J-Dog got there first. “And now, you’ve lost your purpose.”

The blue eyes staring at him were as big of a contrast against the greyscale plane as the bright white wings he wore. J-Dog was mesmerised by it.

The angel sighed, wings drooping as he slumped his shoulders. “I will gain a new purpose but I had to carry him to Heaven once he died. Reunite him with his wife. I was too late.”

J-Dog looked at the vial in his hand and then back at the lost angel. He pressed his eyes shut when a thought passed his mind. He shook his head to clear it. “Not if you got here first, you know?”

“Hm?” the angel looked up at the demon.

J-Dog tossed him the vial and the angel caught it effortlessly out of the air. “Why would you let me have the soul?”

“I don’t know”, J-Dog shrugged. “I got a feeling you need it more than I do.”

“But you are a demon”, the angel argued.

J-Dog stuck out his hand. “Fine, give it back then.”

The angel grinned, holding the vial close to his centre. “No. A gift is a gift, demon.”

J-Dog backed away, not stupid enough to turn his back on an angel. “Yeah, don’t go announcing you got a gift from a demon.”

“As if I want to announce I spoke to a demon”, the angel countered.

J-Dog smirked. “Oof, my feelings. I’m leaving, guardian angel.”

“Charlie”, the angel said.

“What?”

“I’m Charlie”, the angel stated. J-Dog briefly wondered what the ethereal plane looked like to an angel. J-Dog shook his head. “Alright, I’m J-Dog.”

The angel blurred and left the ethereal plane of the human realm himself.

Once the angel was gone, J-Dog felt like he snapped out of a dream, gasping for fresh air as he was sucked back into Hell. Before he knew it, he was hearing the familiar crackling of fire surrounding him. He’d never been sucked back into Hell forcefully before. He had intended to leave but he hadn’t actually used his powers to leave. That was unusual.

J-Dog better report to Johnny about the soul. He walked off, knowing exactly where to go. Besides Danny, Johnny was another demon to have a “home”. Johnny was a high-class demon, working directly under the Devil’s command. He was their district’s leader. He needed to run an efficient system in order not to have his dumb minions running wild, claiming they couldn’t find him to report back – another little something they did to one-up the other districts. Ironically, Johnny’s home was close to Danny’s. It only confirmed J-Dog’s hunch that they weren’t just ‘friendly’ with one another but Danny kept denying it. Walking through the rubble of Hell’s rocks, J-Dog finally found a doorless cave.

Johnny had his back turned to the cave’s opening. It wasn’t foolish trust that demons wouldn’t attack him, it was knowing he could overpower them easily. Several smears of clouds, looking like pastel paintings, floated before him. Johnny held up his hand, shifting through them with a twist of the wrist. There were about nine ‘screens’ open. J-Dog cleared his throat to draw his attention. “Johnny?”

Johnny closed his fist, closing all screens before he turned around. The pitch-black eyes stared back at him. “J-Dog. What took you so long?”

J-Dog scratched his arm. “Well, I kinda lost the soul.”

“What do you mean, you lost the soul?” Johnny asked, eyebrows furrowed.

J-Dog shrugged. “An angel beat me to it. I tried to fight him off but you know my back’s still healing so the angel got to the soul first.”

Johnny grinned so his predatory fangs became visible. “How would I know your back is still healing?”

“Danny patched me up earlier and he had business with you so I assume you gossiping girls talked about me”, J-Dog explained.

Johnny’s grin vanished like snow before the sun. “Easy, I’m your superior”, he warned J-Dog.

J-Dog swallowed a lump and supressed a nervous shiver. “Of course, boss.”

“So you fought an angel for the vial and lost?” Johnny asked. He pulled up a cloud-screen with loads of numbers on it and crossed out a name next to J-Dog’s. The crossed-out name followed after many, many names in white. The white names were souls J-Dog managed to reap before anyone else.

“Yeah”, J-Dog said. “Sorry, dude, I swear I’ll get the next one. You know I’m usually first at the scene.”

Johnny hummed as he scrolled through the list of white names with his fingers, then he closed his fist and the cloud-screen vanished in a puff of smoke. “Alright. Carry on. You have more souls to reap today.”

J-Dog stepped backwards and out of the cave, watching as Johnny reopened the clouds of chalk. He turned his back and walked away. Johnny cast a glance over his shoulder, making sure J-Dog was gone before he pulled up a different cloud-screen. A scene played out before him. He swiped sideways to fast-forward until he found exactly what he needed.

_“Not if you got here first, you know?”_

_“Hm?” the angel cocked his head at the demon._

_J-Dog tossed him the vial and the angel caught it effortlessly out of the air. “Why would you let me have the soul?”_

_“I don’t know”, J-Dog shrugged. “I got a feeling you need it more than I do.”_

Johnny sighed. “Oh Jay, not you too.”

***

J-Dog gasped, wide awake and covered in a layer of sweat. He could feel it cool down his skin immediately, despite the fire roaring around him. He got up, ready to fight whatever threat he was facing, feeling the staples rip through his skin in a complaint. He panted, slowly easing his mind when there was no one with him. He thought he saw a white flash but it was nothing. There was nothing white in the red and black of the dark, crackling Hellfire. He sighed.

It was the sixth night in a row. He couldn’t keep waking up in this sense of panic. He had to do something about it. He calmed down for a second, waited for his heart rate to settle. He looked around and dragged his hands through his hair. There was a sense of despair in his sixth horrendous night. He _needed_ someone to tell him what was happening to him. So he set foot in a familiar direction. He didn’t really know what else to do.

He found himself staring at Danny’s front door, knocking. It only took seconds for the hunter to open the door just a slit to check who it was. “J-Dog?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s night-time, dude, go sleep on a rock or something.”

“I have a problem”, J-Dog said.

Danny opened the door and offered the other entrance. He knew it wasn’t compassion but sheer curiosity that kept the hunter from smacking the door closed in his face. J-Dog gave him an appreciative nod before he entered. J-Dog eyed Danny’s cave, looking back at him. “Why the fuck do you own a pillow?”

In the corner of the cage lay a white pillow. It looked like Danny had been lying on it just a second ago.

“Because none of your fucking business, that’s why. You come knocking on my door in the middle of my blissful moment of rest and you wanna ask questions? Get the fuck out”, Danny grumbled. He let the door fall closed behind him as he walked back into the cave.

J-Dog stuck out his hands. “Yo, calm down.”

“Who the fuck ever calms down when you say that?”

“No one. Fair point. But I’m serious. I have a problem.”

Danny folded his arms. “Alright. What’s up? This better be serious?”

J-Dog leaned against the wall of the cave while Danny leaned against the table opposite of him. There was a comfortable distance between them.

“I keep waking up like I’m facing a threat, seeing things but there’s nothing there. It’s been going on for six nights now! I wake up like someone’s with me and it’s making me fall asleep on the job, dude.”

Danny unfolded his arms. “Oh. Okay, that’s not good. But what do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know what else to do than see you. Maybe you can tell me what’s going on?”

“Why would I know what’s going on?” Danny asked.

J-Dog shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to ask?”

“Could’ve waited until morning though”, the other replied. J-Dog hummed. “I admit it was an impulsive decision.”

Danny looked at him for a few seconds in silence before he furrowed his eyebrows. “Six nights?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’ve had it since you met the angel?”

J-Dog dropped his jaw. “You totally do talk to Johnny about me behind my back!”

Danny chuckled. “Come on. Did you think he wouldn’t tell me about your angel fight? I’m surprised you didn’t bring it up yourself. Then again, you lost so you couldn’t really boast about it.”

“Shut up, asshole”, J-Dog glared at him. “But yeah, I’ve had it since I saw the angel.”

“Awe, man, I had hoped it wouldn’t get to you”, Danny groaned. “You’re fucked.”

“Wow, thanks, dude”, J-Dog flung his hands up in frustration. “What kind of asshole response is that?!”

Danny nodded at the pillow in the corner. “I’m gonna chuck my pillow at you if you keep calling me an asshole.”

“Well, explain why I’m fucked, then!” J-Dog demanded. “I’ve been waking up like this every night, been falling asleep during the day, distracted or lost in thoughts. Am I sick? Did the angel poison me?”

Danny sighed and lifted himself to sit on the table. It was packed with all kinds of weaponry. “You’re not actually poisoned. Affected in a way, sure, but the angel didn’t do it. You just had an angel sighting.”

“So?”

“Angels and demons aren’t supposed to meet”, Danny explained. “We are pure evil. They are pure good. We balance each other out by existing because if they didn’t exist, well, we’d just be the norm of celestials instead of evil. The humans are a mix of both good and evil balanced in one individual. Some of their decisions are good ones, some of them are bad ones but each human has an ethereal scale we can see and each decision weighs on the scale to decide their fate when they die. Mostly good actions cause their soul’s destination to be Heaven and only angels can reap the soul when they die. Mostly bad actions cause their soul’s destination to be Hell and only demons can reap the soul when they die. But when their life consisted of equally good and bad decisions, the scale is in perfect balance and enables the soul to be reaped by either demon or angel depending on who got there first. It is rare for such thing to happen.”

“I’m aware”, J-Dog stopped him. “But what does this have to do with my angel sighting?”

“I was getting there”, Danny responded, extending his leg to kick J-Dog but he couldn’t quite reach him from the table. “The duality of good and bad is life so its natural state is to be balanced. Human actions cause changes in the balance, but by default, their good and evil is both present in whatever proportions. When an angel and a demon meet, they form that balance as well. The demon and angel become part of a balanced unit.”

“So?”

“You’re connected to the angel you’ve met. You guys form a bond now. You’re a balanced unit of good and bad.”

J-Dog laughed. “Get out of here. Where’d you get that bullshit?”

“I mean it”, Danny said. He leaned in. “You’re not supposed to meet an angel. You’re connected to the angel now. They’re gonna have the same experience right now.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” J-Dog asked. “Am I gonna die?”

Danny shook his head. “If you don’t see them again, you’ll get worse. You have to see them again.”

“Just to break the connection?” J-Dog asked.

“No, you can’t break it.”

J-Dog slumped his shoulders. “So what? I gotta live with Charlie?”

Danny chuckled. “He has a name, huh? How’d you find that out in battle?”

J-Dog bent down to grab the pillow from the floor and threw it at Danny. “I’m gonna throw one of your weapons next.”

It was a loose threat considering Danny was the one sitting near the weapons.

“You didn’t fight him, did you?” Danny cooed. “You gave him the soul.”

“I did”, J-Dog admitted. “Don’t tell Johnny. Can you keep it a secret from your lover?”

“He is not my lover!” Danny yelled, throwing the pillow back at him.

“Careful, you might hurt his feelings if he hears you. Where’d you hide him in your cave anyway?” J-Dog teased.

Danny grumbled. “You and Charlie need each other, dude. You need to find him and then you’ll understand.”

“This all sounds like you’re implying we’re soulmates now”, J-Dog muttered.

Danny blinked. “You are. Fate put you together with an angel who will complement you perfectly. You’ll see. It’ll seem like the two of you were made to have a bond.”

“I don’t have a soulmate”, J-Dog huffed. Danny shrugged. “Just don’t tell other demons. They don’t take too kindly to angel connections unless they have one of their own.”

“This shit is dumb”, J-Dog said. “How do you even know all that?”

Danny grimaced. “Johnny.”

“See?! You guys are definitely an item!”

Danny grabbed a random weapon off the table and it happened to be an axe. He threw it at J-Dog who dodged it. The axe got stuck in the wall. “Shut up and go back to sleep, you angel lover.”

J-Dog pulled the axe out of the wall. Damn, it was in there pretty tightly so Danny must’ve thrown it with way more force than he seemed to have in him. He threw the axe back at him and hit him in the shoulder. “Don’t call me that.”

***

J-Dog had ignored Danny’s advice but two weeks after the incident with Charlie, J-Dog couldn’t keep going on. He was a sleep deprived mess and the longer he waited to find the angel, the more delirious he became. He’d been dreaming of white wings and blue eyes for a few days now. He’d seen blinding flashes of him inside his mind and it hurt more the more it happened. It was _really_ time to test Danny’s theory. J-Dog delegated his Critters, set up a torturing scheme because, well, he couldn’t have the Critters go easy on the souls, now could he? He mapped out every soul’s personal weakness and how to hit them where it hurt, gave all Critters their task and souls and set off to search for Charlie, the angel. J-Dog had no idea where to start looking or if the angel would even be in the human realm at all. If Charlie were in Heaven, J-Dog would never even find him. He groaned at the thought.

He packed a weapon just in case the angel or other angels would attack. Then he used his powers to blur and leave for the familiar, greyscale, shifting outlines of the human realm. Once he was in the greyscale world, he inhaled sharply. Everything moved in real-time as he had no soul to reap. He could see the wind making the trees rustle.

He would start his journey looking in angel hotspots around churches and chapels. He could not enter most of the buildings but encircling it, would be enough to pick up on any light contrasting the grey world. Everything was a lighter shade of grey as it was day-time but the bright shining of angels would not go unnoticed. J-Dog sped through several locations quickly with no sight of any angels at all. If there had been anyone there, besides Charlie even, they hid themselves from him. J-Dog huffed as he remembered his last conversation with Danny.

_“You can’t keep going like this”, Danny rubbed J-Dog shoulder a little roughly with one hand. J-Dog had rendered his other arm useless by throwing that axe into his shoulder. Danny said something about having hit his axillary nerve, but J-Dog knew nothing about that crap. All he knew, was that Danny’s arm was paralysed until the nerve healed. J-Dog hummed absentmindedly. He was falling asleep on the spot. Danny pressed his fingers into the wound of his shoulder. J-Dog flinched, suddenly wide awake. “Shit! Why’d you do that?”_

_“You’re falling asleep. I’m treating your goddamn burn wound which you got from falling asleep on the job. See the irony?” Danny asked._

_J-Dog folded his arms. “If you’re gonna be an ass about treating my wounds every time, I’m gonna…”_

_“What? You’re not gonna come to me to get patched up? Honestly, you’re the one suffering so I wouldn’t give two shits about that stuff.”_

_“Fair point”, J-Dog admitted. “You still think I’m going insane over my angel sighting?”_

_“I’m sure of it. You’re not the first demon to meet an angel and form the connection, J-Dog.”_

_J-Dog grumbled. “We’re not connected. I’m poisoned.”_

_“Fine, you’re poisoned but he’s gonna be on your mind more prominently with every night that passes.”_

_“What if I go look for Charlie and I find other angels? Will I be connected to them too? I’m not really interested in an angel harem.”_

_Danny chuckled, patting him on the back. “No, just the first angel you’ve met, is special.”_

_J-Dog put his shirt back on. “How would I even find him in the first place?”_

_Danny smirked. “Trust me. You’ll find him.”_

This was all such a load of crap. J-Dog was supposed to be guided by his non-existent soul to find his angel soulmate who he connected with as soon as they met. Bullshit. No demon would do this or feel this way about a dumb angel. The more this thing developed, the more it seemed like Danny was just trolling him as a payback for all of the Danny 3 Tears comments. By the time his train of thoughts ended, J-Dog stopped on his 120th destination. Such bullshit. 120 places later and there still wasn’t a single trace of Charlie. J-Dog kicked a rock, foot passing right through it as he couldn’t touch anything in the human realm unless it were cursed. He decided to call it quits. He would never find Charlie. Guess he’d just fucking die of whatever this curse was. He refused to call it being part of the same soul, as Danny had put it. No. Charlie was a parasite inside his mind. Then an idea hit.

How about he just went back to New York?

It was worth a shot. J-Dog shifted his surroundings back into the place he reaped the soul. The surroundings seemed completely unfamiliar with the large crowds continuing in their fast pace through the streets. The whole atmosphere was far less depressing and of course, the body was gone. J-Dog looked around for a sign of divinity but there was nothing there. He sighed and walked through the crowd. Maybe it would clear his head a little to walk through the streets. He passed through the humans like a ghost, unable to touch any of them unless they were dead or summoning demons in the first place. He could see the time they had left to live float above their heads along with the soul’s current destination – Heaven, Hell or indecisive. He saw several familiar names pass him by. Probably of humans he was supposed to reap in a few days. The further he walked, the smaller the houses got as he was far away from the city by now. He felt something twist in his gut. It was something that egged him on. He was so tired. He’d been tired all the time. Whenever he didn’t wake up in a panic, seeing soft wings before his eyes, he was haunted by icy blue dreams staring into his soul. Something told him to keep walking. He could sense something in the distance. He was surrounded by small houses and took a left turn. He could see the street end in a cul-de-sac with children playing outside, kicking a ball around with a tiny yellow, plastic goal at the end. He could see a white dot, sitting on the rooftop of one of the houses to the left. Somehow he knew it wasn’t just any other angel. He knew it was _his_ angel. He shook his head, trying to erase that thought but the closer he got, the stronger he felt this strange sense of possession. Charlie was the white dot, he knew it. He was the white being sitting on top of the roof of the house to J-Dog’s left.

Charlie leaned his elbows on his knees, wings hung low on his back, legs dangled off the edge of the roof. He looked relaxed. There was a bottle of gin by his side. He was watching the kids play football. J-Dog stood still, staring at Charlie from several feet away. He didn’t know what to do or say. He was struck with awe. He noticed besides the vibrant blue eyes and radiant white wings, just how genuine that smile on his face was when he looked at the children. He looked laid back, chilling in the sun on top of the house. J-Dog felt something twist in his gut, almost like the feeling was confined and couldn’t break free yet. He felt a longing to get closer but to reach the rooftop he either had to teleport or climb the house and he just didn’t want to startle the angel.

Though he didn’t have to when Charlie turned his head into J-Dog’s direction. He laid eyes on the demon. A shiver went through J-Dog when he noticed how tired those blue eyes seemed. Now he noticed how ruffled and dull those wings had become since last time. Charlie clearly had some rough weeks as well. “You.”

J-Dog looked like a deer in the headlights when Charlie spoke. The angel got up, grabbed his bottle of gin and floated down. He stopped in front of J-Dog. The closer he got, the more prominent the confined feeling in J-Dog’s gut became. “Charlie.”

“J-Dog”, Charlie stated, an unreadable expression on his face. “I don’t know what you did to me, but you better reverse it, dude.”

“I didn’t do anything. We did something to each other.”

Charlie circled J-Dog carefully, watching him from every angle. “You carry a knife.”

“Just in case you’d attack”, J-Dog muttered. Charlie hummed. “Valid.”

The angel halted before J-Dog, closer than he intended. J-Dog didn’t have the space to look away from him but he didn’t want to either. He felt drawn in. He needed to come even closer. He swallowed a lump in his throat. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this way. Charlie cocked his head. “What did we do to each other then?”

J-Dog didn’t believe Danny’s theory but standing so close to Charlie again, he didn’t have a choice but to believe it. He felt like it made sense. He felt connected to the angel. “We’ve entangled our fate by meeting.”

“Angels and demons aren’t supposed to meet”, Charlie muttered as if he remembered something. “I thought they meant we weren’t supposed to meet because it would end in Purgatory?”

“I thought so too”, J-Dog sighed. “But it’s not. It’s because it binds us.”

Charlie’s expression became one of worry and J-Dog held back the need to soothe that frown.

“What does that mean for us?” Charlie wondered. J-Dog wasn’t sure what to do or say or why he wanted to do anything but he stuck out his hand. Charlie gazed at it hesitantly but eventually accepted it and placed his own in it. There was a flash behind their eyes, a sudden realisation hit J-Dog. All these flashes of white in Hell, all this time he had felt like he wasn’t alone in Hell, everything strange about the past weeks. It all made sense. He hadn’t seen white in Hell. He’d seen flashes of Heaven through Charlie’s eyes. He’d felt Charlie’s presence in Hell because he was connected to him. The twisting feeling in J-Dog’s gut unravelled as it broke out of its confinements and changed into something he could grasp. He felt… curiosity and apprehension but they weren’t his own. They were Charlie’s. He could _feel_ Charlie’s emotions inside, next to his own. Charlie let go of J-Dog but the feeling remained. Besides his own amazement, he still felt the curiosity. “What just happened?”

Charlie blinked and pressed his palm to his chest. “I have no clue, but I think I feel your mood inside?”

“I can sense yours, too”, J-Dog mused.

“Did we make it worse or better?” Charlie asked.

J-Dog took a step back. “I feel better. It can’t be worse.”

“I feel better as well”, Charlie mused. He dropped the bottle of gin from his hand on the ground, turning it greyscale as it shattered onto the asphalt. It left the ethereal plane for the human plane. The kids turned their heads, creeped out by the random bottle appearing and shattering. They gazed up at the sky to see where it came from but they could never realise it was an angel who dropped it. J-Dog looked down at the shattered bottle and cocked his head. “Did you bless a bottle of gin of the humans to snatch it into the ethereal plane?”

Charlie shrugged. “Guilty as charged. I thought I was going mad, dude. I really needed the drink but Heaven’s drinks aren’t as good as the humans’ booze. How did you find me anyway?”

“I was guided”, J-Dog said. “I think. What were you doing here?”

Charlie cast a glance over his shoulder at the children who resumed their football game. “I’m just passing some time watching his children. They’ve moved in with their grandparents now.”

“Looking after the soul you were supposed to protect, even now?” J-Dog asked. Charlie smiled and simultaneously, J-Dog felt the joy inside next to his own thoughts. “I wanted to tell him his children are taken care of, even if he didn’t have the courage to stay after his wife passed.”

“That is very… pure of you. So unlike me”, J-Dog said. Charlie’s smile melted off his face. “You’ve been nothing but nice so far, even if you had an effect on me for two weeks.”

J-Dog raised an eyebrow, expression turned grim. “I am evil. Don’t degrade me. I torture, I fight, I rip other demons to shreds. They say my tongue turns black every time that I breathe.”

“Alright, alright, you’re a baddy”, Charlie huffed. “But maybe we balance each other out like this? I can’t say stealing booze from humans is a Heavenly thing to do.”

“Booze is worth stealing. Though how did you get them to bless the bottle?” J-Dog asked. “It takes me forever to curse one to snatch it.”

Charlie grinned. “That’s my little secret. I’ll take it to Purgatory with me.”

“Speaking of secrets”, J-Dog said. “We shouldn’t tell others about this. You never know how they may respond.”

“Definitely”, Charlie agreed. “But do you think we’ll be better now when we return home?”

“From what I’ve heard, we will need to see each other again.”

“When?”

“We’ll see”, J-Dog shrugged.

“But how will I find you?”

“You’ll find me”, J-Dog grinned. “We’re connected.”

Charlie smiled and nodded. “Alright.”

***

“You seem well”, Danny noticed. J-Dog moved his head to look up, seeing Danny’s feet from his position lying on the ground. There was a calm swirl in his gut, indicating Charlie was most likely asleep as well. He followed the feet to see Danny looming over him upside down. J-Dog rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “I’m sleeping, do you mind?”

Danny kicked J-Dog in the shoulder. “Like Hell, I’m gonna let you rest. You fucking axed my shoulder while interrupting my beauty sleep. I got a job for you.”

J-Dog rolled over and sat upright to look at Danny lazily. “A job for me? Why?”

“As you recall, my arm is useless”, Danny stated, illustrating it by picking up the arm and dropping it to his side. “Because you axed my nerve. Now I need to complete my missions with one functional arm and Johnny said you have to help me out or he’d gonna beat your ass for putting me on the bench.”

J-Dog groaned. “Isn’t it healed yet? It’s been a while and I haven’t helped you out since it happened, so why now?”

“No, it is not healed and I was fine with one arm until now. I’ve got bigger missions ahead of me. I’ve been putting off collecting contracts of protected souls because I’m in no state to fight an angel. I also have some soul contracts to collect in the territory of the rival districts and I _really_ don’t want to lose a fight from rival demons right now, or ever. Who the fuck ever wants to lose from angels or rival demons with one arm?” Danny complained.

J-Dog blinked. “You’ve fought angels? How come you’re not connected to one?!”

Danny rolled his eyes. “I’m a hunter. I’m supposed to fight angels.”

“Well fuck”, J-Dog got up. He stretched with a yawn. “So you want me to help fight angels in case you bump into one while collecting souls?”

“Yes”, Danny said. “But be careful because I’m not the only hunter chasing after these souls. The neighbour district is trying to kill me cause I keep bringing home enough souls for Johnny to beat Matt’s numbers.”

Matt, of course, was the high-class demon – the Johnny – of the neighbouring district. Johnny had a personal competition going on with Matt and so far, he’d had a win streak every month. It was really worth it to mess with Matt every month.

“I’ll do it. I love to piss off demons from the other district. And this district”, J-Dog grinned. “You know I do.”

“Definitely explains your attitude lately”, Danny teased. J-Dog grabbed a rock off the ground and threw it at Danny but the other dodged the attack. “Stop throwing shit at me! If you wound me further, Johnny will-…”

“Awe, calling on Johnny to protect you?” J-Dog cooed.

Danny’s face fell. He glared at J-Dog. “For that comment, you don’t get to command the Hellhounds.”

J-Dog pouted. “Awe, but I’ve never seen a Hellhound hunt down a human before!”

J-Dog held a strange expression on his face when he sensed a shift in Charlie’s mood. He must be dreaming. It felt a little silenced when Charlie slept. Weaker, somehow. Danny raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Charlie’s dreaming and I felt the shift in his mood”, J-Dog muttered. “Let’s go.”

“So you’ve touched him?” Danny chuckled.

“I have”, J-Dog nodded, a little hesitant.

“How?”

“What do you mean?”

Danny smirked mischievously but J-Dog glared back at him. “No, I didn’t fuck him, you pervert. I just touched his hand.”

“Boring”, Danny sighed. “Let’s go.”

J-Dog put his hand on Danny’s shoulder so he’d be able to enter the hunter mode of the ethereal plane in the human realm as well. Charlie’s silenced emotions shifted, but remained positive inside of him. It was a pleasant feeling. Danny used his functional hand to draw up a cloud-like screen like Johnny could. He swiped right to switch the scenery. First came a beach, then rocky mountains, a grass field and finally a cosy home. Danny checked the details of the soul contract and hummed approvingly. He picked the cosy home setting. The cloud-screen grew and engulfed them both so they landed in the middle of the vintage house. J-Dog let go of Danny and looked around. Having travelled with Danny to the ethereal plane, it looked far different than it did in torture mode. In hunter mode the ethereal plane wasn’t in greyscale, it showed its vibrant colours. In hunter mode they could also touch everything. It was almost like they were present in the mortal plane of the human realm, with the exception that only those whose soul was about to be reaped, could _see_ them. The house looked like the kind of home you’d find in the woods with dark wooden furniture, wooden support beams and white walls. It was rather narrow, clearly not meant for many people. It seemed like a house for a single person, maybe two if you didn’t mind bumping into one another when walking to the other room. “Pity she has to die here.”

“What did she ask for?” J-Dog asked. He grimaced when he felt Charlie’s mood shift to annoyed for a second. He must’ve been dreaming something far less pleasant now.

Danny pulled a scroll out of thin air and opened it. “Closure.”

“Closure?”

The scroll dissolved and Danny’s eyes turned white for a second before returning to their hazel colour. He had now gained the ability to reap the soul of this person. Demons couldn’t just visit the human realm and kill whatever human they wanted to, they needed the contract and they needed to activate the contract in order to gain the ability to reap the soul. “She had a lot of things from her past haunting her. She traded her soul for closure and peace of mind.”

“That is… surprisingly human and corny”, J-Dog scoffed. “But not a bad idea. I think I’d just kill myself.”

“Same”, Danny grinned, “But that’s because we don’t actually die when we kill ourselves. We heal. Would you still if you knew what fate awaited you in Hell?”

“Maybe not”, J-Dog admitted. “Do you think we’ll get to fight her?”

“I hope so. I like it when they beg and squirm”, Danny expressed, looking hungry for a fight despite the fact he only had one arm. J-Dog had to squeeze to walk past the furniture of the small house into a narrow hallway with old stairs leading upwards along the wall. It was something to get used to. Humans and their stuff. “Do we leave traces?”

Danny shook his head. “As fun as it would be to confuse humans, angels and rival demons can track us down if we leave traces so don’t touch anything.”

J-Dog nodded. He held up his hands to let Danny pass him by and lead the way. The other shook his head with a grin and joined him in the hallway, walking upstairs. It was night. The human must be asleep. Danny kept his head low, knees bent slightly. His bad arm was turned towards the wall. It was convenient to make sure no rival demons could exploit his weakness. He was cautious and J-Dog followed stealthily. Upstairs were a single bedroom and bathroom. The door of the bedroom was wide open and they could see the woman in her bed. Before the bedroom door opening, Danny paused and sniffed. He whipped his head back. “DUCK!”

J-Dog immediately ducked, barely dodging a knife and looked up to see the demon who threw it. He was grateful Charlie’s emotions had settled and become calm and peaceful again, less distractions.

“Danny! You brought a treat! Even if the treat had to be J-Dog.”

“Oh fuck off, Deuce”, Danny grumbled. “I knew I smelled your bullshit.”

J-Dog felt a sting in his gut when he saw Deuce. This time it wasn’t Charlie’s emotions but something he felt. He and Deuce went _way_ back. Deuce used to be a hunter from his district until they found out Deuce was working for Matt as a spy and he betrayed their district. It had been a decade since it happened, but Danny, J-Dog and even Johnny, were still sore about it.

Deuce laughed. “I love how competitive you get. I brought some buddies of my own to back me up.”

Danny looked up to find two more demons, sitting on the support beams of the ceiling. Both dropped down and blocked the way to the human in bed.

“Yuma and Gadjet, of course.”

Deuce snapped his fingers. “Sic ‘em, guys.”

Danny jumped back onto the stairs to dodge when Yuma came for him. J-Dog pulled Deuce’s knife out the wall and threw it at Yuma. It soared through the air and hit the unsuspecting Yuma. He yowled when it got stuck in his arm and turned to J-Dog, lunging at him. They broke through the wall and floor and fell down into the living room with Yuma on top. J-Dog squirmed while he was pinned down and eventually managed to flip Yuma off him. He got up and flexed his neck. “Shit dude, I just got my spine stapled a few fucking weeks ago. Be gentle.”

Yuma laughed, pulling a dagger from his boot. “When I’m done with you, they won’t find your spine anymore.”

“Bold”, J-Dog laughed when Yuma came at him with the dagger. J-Dog dodged, grabbed his wrist and twisted it back, squeezing the dagger out of his hand and snatched it with his own free hand. He jammed it into Yuma’s neck in between the third and fourth cerebral vertebra. Yuma fell to the floor instantly. J-Dog planted his foot on his chest. “Look who’s paralysed now! You can’t even breathe on your own now.”

Man, in that moment he was _so_ grateful Danny had given him a crash course on the nervous system. With the connection of the phrenic nerve severed, Yuma could not breathe on his own and would constantly suffocate and come back to life as a demon cannot die by the hand of another demon. It was pure Hell for him until someone would pull the knife out of his neck and allow the nerve to heal in a few weeks.

“Jay, I could really use a fucking hand!” Danny yelled. J-Dog glanced up into the hole he left when he fell the floor and saw Danny fight off both Deuce and Gadjet. With one functioning arm. He huffed. “Show-off.”

He climbed back into the hole, feeling like going around and using the stairs would take too much time. He stepped on a loose part and fell, leg scraping along a shard of rubble. He cursed when it ripped his pants and bled like a motherfucker but pulled himself up. Danny kept Gadjet pinned to the floor with a foot while he had Deuce in a chokehold. “Take one of them off my hands, please.”

Before J-Dog could say “don’t you mean ‘hand’?”, Danny shoved Deuce face first at him. The other demon stumbled and fell into J-Dog, both tumbled over. Jay groaned when he hit his head and Deuce saw the opportunity to gain the upper hand. He dragged Jay by his leg and towards the hole. “This is between hunters, Jay.”

J-Dog kicked himself free, making Deuce stumble backwards. “Oh no, Deuce, this shit’s been personal since the second you left our district.”  
Something unreadable crossed Deuce’s expression but he didn’t back down. J-Dog managed to hold him off and make him step back until they reached the hole in the floor and shoved him into it. Deuce fell flat on his back and hit his head.

Gadjet was on top of Danny with the advantage of the extra arm. J-Dog walked up to him and pressed his sharp claws into Gadjet’s side. He ripped right through the skin and pressed his fingers into his ribs, trying to drag him off Danny. The demon roared at the pain, stabbing his knife blindly backwards at J-Dog. Jay took the knife out of his hand and sliced it through the back of his neck. He dug his claws deeper into Gadjet, fully intending on tearing the demon to pieces.

Danny got up when Deuce had returned upstairs and attempted to back Gadjet up. “I thought this was between hunters?!”

Deuce gladly fought Danny, swiftly bringing him down by using the useless arm to his advantage. “I’ll scatter your organs so it’ll take you weeks to recover.”

“Your henchmen are down”, J-Dog grumbled. Deuce looked up. Jay held Gadjet’s bleeding heart into his hands, dripping down on the lifeless body it belonged to. “Now either you let go of Danny, leave and I put it back gently so he’ll heal faster or I _yeet_ it into oblivion and you’re on your own until it’s found. What’s it gonna be, Deuce?”

Deuce hesitated, eyes darting back and forth. Finally, he let go of Danny. “Fine. The soul’s mine already anyway.”

He vanished into nothingness.

J-Dog tossed the heart somewhere into the room. Hey, he said he’d put it down, he didn’t say he would put it back _inside_ his chest. He went up to Danny. “I was wondering why the human was so quiet while we trashed her house.”

He stuck out a hand and helped Danny up. The hunter rubbed the back of his head. “I told you I couldn’t fight them off with one arm. Two arms? Yeah, of course, but not one. And yes, she was already dead but winning a fight from Deuce and the bunch is awesome too.”

“Let’s go”, Danny said but J-Dog pulled him back by his arm. “I think you’re gonna want to patch yourself up in Hell before we go on another adventure, dude.”

Danny looked over his shoulder, finding his side ripped wide open and exposing some of the muscle underneath. He rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake.”

J-Dog was grateful Charlie hadn’t been awake during the fight. He hadn’t been feeling him inside for long so it was still very distracting to notice it sometimes. The angel was still very calm and slumbering. J-Dog put his hand on Danny’s arm and the two returned to Hell.

In the silence and the rubble they left behind, Deuce reappeared upstairs. He put the heart back into Gadjet’s chest and appeared downstairs. He ripped the knife out of Yuma’s throat, allowing him to heal now. Standing with the knife in hand, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. In the ruins of the hole in the walls and ceiling, he found some fabric, skin and blood hanging on a shard. It was the exact place where J-Dog had scraped his leg. Deuce grinned. “Oh J-Dog, beware, I am coming for you now.”

***

J-Dog was awake. He couldn’t sleep for the first time since he had seen Charlie again. He took a deep breath. The feeling of Charlie in his chest had ceased. He couldn’t feel his emotions anymore. He still saw mixed worlds in his dreams, partially his and Charlie’s, but no more sensations in his gut besides his own. It worried him slightly.

He should be relieved he wasn’t so attached to Charlie anymore but Danny had told him this would happen.

_“My nerve healed”, Danny grinned, rotating his arm to demonstrate his previously wounded shoulder. He winced and put his arm back down. “But I think Gadjet hit me in the subscapularis last week.”_

_“The what?” J-Dog asked, looking up from the weapon he held in his hands. He put it back down onto the table. They were in Danny’s cave again. Danny had managed to hide his pillow from J-Dog, or maybe he threw it out._

_Danny raised an eyebrow. “One of the four muscles that form the rotator cuff. I swear you’d perish of your wounds without my knowledge.”_

_“Not just because of biological knowledge”, J-Dog huffed. “I probably wouldn’t have seen Charlie again and just gotten worse.”_

_“True”, Danny grinned. “How is that going anyway?”_

_“Alright. I haven’t seen him in a few days because I keep feeling him inside, you know? I sense he’s okay.”_

_On cue, J-Dog felt a mischievous mood from Charlie. Wonder what he was up to._

_Danny hummed. “That’ll vanish though.”_

_“What?”_

_“The ability to sense him fades the longer you’ve been away from one another. Once you see him again, it’ll be renewed.”_

_J-Dog picked up another tool to inspect. “So what if that feeling goes away? I don’t even want to feel him.”_

_“But you need to”, Danny chuckled. “To know he’s safe and you need to see him to keep yourself from getting worse again.”_

_“It still doesn’t make sense to me”, J-Dog grumbled. He smacked the tool down on the table. “Why me?!”_

_“At the right moment, at the right time, dude.”_

_“Don’t you mean at the wrong moment at the wrong time?”_

_Danny rolled his eyes and pried the tool from Jay’s fingers. He held it up sternly to scold J-Dog. “One. This was expensive so don’t slam it onto the table like that. Two. You have to stop fighting this. You could be very very happy with Charlie.”_

_“Happy? God, you’re a horrible demon. Whatever happened to having no purpose in life and not giving a shit?”_

_Danny shrugged. “What you have, is just better than that so stop fighting it! Swallow your demon pride for once.”_

J-Dog winced at the comment. He hadn’t been fighting this thing with Charlie. Hell, he met up with Charlie willingly. What more could he do to accept it as a demon? He wasn’t gonna write him poems or pray or become less of a demon because of it. Wait, no, that wasn’t right. He was slightly less… mean than before. That was a fact. The balanced unit cancelled each other out. The angel became less goody two shoes and the demon became less evil. This was all so dumb.

Fed up with being sleepless, J-Dog stood up. It was very much night but it was still worth a shot. He blurred out of Hell’s space and into the ethereal plane of the human realm. Then he tried to ban the thoughts out of his head. Last time he found Charlie, he found him when he wasn’t even looking for him.

So, what did J-Dog feel like doing? He wanted to throw himself off a fucking cliff. Good idea. He appeared outside of a city in pure nature. There was a river running below rocky cliffs looking over a forest. The full moon shone bright. Even though everything was in greyscale, it was still a beautiful sight and J-Dog was surprised his dumb, gore-ish boredom had led him to it. He was even more surprised to find Charlie sitting on the edge of the cliff.

“Damn, this shit works”, J-Dog muttered to himself. Charlie looked over his shoulder, suddenly jumping upright into a standing position. “Oh hey Jay.”

“Hey, I found you.”

Charlie shook his head. “I found _you_. I was looking for you.”

“While sitting on the edge of a cliff?” J-Dog wondered. Charlie nodded. “I was about to give up and return to Heaven.”

“Well, I’m here. Why were you looking for me?” Jay asked.

Charlie shrugged and sat back down. He drew up a knee to rest his chin on it, arms wrapped around it. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“I couldn’t either”, Jay sighed. He sat down next to the angel, legs dangling off the edge. Charlie lowered his knee and put his hands on the ground besides him. J-Dog was vaguely aware of the white fluff that were his wings floating behind him. Just one swoop of the wing and J-Dog would be sent tumbling into the river. Did he trust the angel then? No. Like he said, he wanted to throw himself off a fucking cliff at this point anyway so why not?

“You’re angry”, Charlie mused. “Why?”

“Just in general. I was doing just fine before I met you”, J-Dog sighed. Charlie smiled sadly. He looked up into the sky. “So was I. I didn’t ask to be connected to you.”

Jay could feel the sadness of his angel inside. He put his hand over Charlie’s on the ground. The feeling in his gut intensified, now renewed. The angel turned his head to look at Jay. “Despite that, I don’t think I would want to be connected to any other demon. I’m sure that if fate paired us up, it is because we complement each other.”

“It is”, J-Dog agreed. He leaned back on his hands, arm behind Charlie. “Did you end up telling the soul his children were taken care of?”

Charlie nodded. “He was grateful for that. What about you? What is your purpose?”

“I torture”, J-Dog said. “But Danny was unable to fight for a while so I helped him out the past week.”

Charlie seemed confused. “Who’s Danny and why does he need to fight or was he unable to fight?”

He leaned back a little, touching J-Dog’s arm. Jay smiled. “Danny is a hunter who told me about this connection between angels and demons. He got on my nerves so I threw an axe at him and he got wounded in the shoulder so he couldn’t fight well. Danny collects a lot of soul contracts and some of them are in rival territory or have an angel watching over them so he occasionally has to fight demons and angels on his missions. Kinda hard to do with just one arm. That’s why I tagged along.”

Charlie processed that information. Then he smirked. “Did you kick someone’s ass while you were at it?”

“Oh yeah”, J-Dog chuckled. “On the first time I killed two demons who will heal, of course, but still, and just over the course of the week, I fought off a fuckton of rival demons and the occasional angel.”

“Would you be able to beat me?” Charlie wondered. He scurried upright. J-Dog looked at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, fight me!” Charlie chuckled. “I promise I’ll go easy on you.”

J-Dog shook his head but got up. He figured he’d go easy on Charlie because the blue-eyed angel was just so small in comparison to the angels he had fought this week. Those had been vicious warriors. J-Dog threw his hands up. “Alright then. Try to keep up with me.”

He raised his fists and came at Charlie. The angel turned sideways and let J-Dog bump into his wing. The demon’s head hit the bone. He stumbled backwards, keeping his fists raised and Charlie grabbed the wrist to spin him around, hugged his back against his own chest. “This is fun.”

J-Dog had his arms crossed on his chest, kept in a tight grip by the angel. He felt the joy of the angel in his chest. He tried to move but Charlie held him firmly. “I bet you thought I was a weak little guardian angel?”

J-Dog furrowed his eyebrows. “Fair enough. I underestimated my opponent.”

Charlie let go. He chuckled. “Never underestimate your opponent. Appearing weaker than I am, is part of my strategy.”

He turned his back on J-Dog to walk back to the cliff. Jay shoved him forward which made Charlie stumble and fall. Then the demons straddled the angel, sitting on his lower back. “Opportunity attack. You turned your back on a possible enemy.”

“You’re not my enemy”, Charlie laughed. J-Dog felt something glow inside whenever Charlie laughed. He wanted to hear more of it. He traced the edge of where Charlie’s shirt met his wings. “Do you have to cut holes into your shirt to fit your wings?”

“No”, Charlie grinned. “My wings are made of divinity. They go right through clothes.”

“But I can touch them?” J-Dog asked, sticking out a hand to caress the feathers. His fingers barely even touched the feathers but Charlie said nothing. Jay smirked. “Do you feel it when I touch the feathers?”

“I do”, Charlie attempted to roll over, pushing J-Dog off his back. “My wings are fairly sensitive to touch just to raise my awareness of them. Make sure I don’t bump them into objects while I walk, you know?”

“I see”, J-Dog got up. “I don’t have anything like that.”

He looked down at his hands. “I mean. I have black claws.”

He stretched his sharp charcoal fingers to look at them. “And I have red eyes”, he demonstrated them by looking at Charlie and flashing their red colour. The angel sat back amused. “Do you have black claws on your feet too?”

J-Dog looked down at his shoes, eyes back to their original colour. “I do but I prefer shoes. They’re more useful in case I have to run.”

“What would you run from?” Charlie wondered. He sat with his legs folded, leaning backwards. “Me?”

J-Dog chuckled. “Yeah, I’d run from an angel.”

“Hey, I can be dangerous”, Charlie complained.

J-Dog looked down at his fingers. “Aren’t you spooked by my claws or eyes?”

“Are you spooked by my wings?” Charlie countered.

J-Dog nodded. “I was intimidated by them at first, yeah.”

“That’s cute”, Charlie mocked. J-Dog rolled his eyes. He could see a red light beneath his skin glowing in his wrist. He gasped. “The night is almost over. I should go back to Hell. Fuck, time passes crazy fast out here.”

Charlie got up. “You had good company, didn’t you?”

“When did you become such a confident devil?” J-Dog teased. Charlie stuck out his hand and helped J-Dog up on his feet. “Since my fate entwined with a certain demon’s.”

J-Dog smirked. “Maybe it’s not so bad to have this connection after all.”

“Of course not”, Charlie huffed. “I’m great.”

***

“Thinking of Charlie?” Danny asked. He was packing his duffel bag. J-Dog looked up when he said it and raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

He felt that Charlie was enjoying himself in Heaven and it was good to know.

“Repeat a single word I said to you in the past few minutes”, Danny challenged him. J-Dog stuck out his tongue before he put up a mocking little high-pitched voice. “Thinking of Charlie?”

Danny chuckled. “So you were thinking of him.”

“Fine, I was”, J-Dog huffed. He leaned over the table to have a look at a few weapons. “I saw him again a few days ago.”

“Do you even get to torture any souls in between bugging me and seeing Charlie?”

J-Dog made a face. “I would’ve tortured souls if it hadn’t been for the week you stole me for hunting souls.”

“Sure, it’s my fault”, Danny grinned. He twirled a knife in his hand, checking the markings on it before he put it into the bag. “But how was it to see him again?”

“Great”, Jay smiled. He leaned his face into his hands onto the table. Danny had finally made a chair to sit on whenever he wasn’t working but it was occupied by J-Dog now. “He’s cool. He seems really weak but damn, he beat me.”

“Beat you?”

“He asked me to fight him”, Jay explained. Danny cast his eyes at the ceiling of his cave. “But of course he did.”

“What?”

“Finding excuses to touch you. Oh babe, he’s bad at flirting and so are you.”

“Why the fuck would we flirt?” J-Dog asked, insulted. He snatched a tool away before Danny could grab it and stabbed it into the table. “And don’t call me babe.”

Danny grumbled and pulled the tool out of the table. “Be careful, I need this table.”

He tucked the tool away. “And you guys are flirting because you’re meant to be together. Do yourself a favour and stop fighting the attraction towards him.”

“Hey, I already accepted we’re connected. You said that was enough last time”, J-Dog complained.

Danny shook his head. He swung the duffel bag over his shoulder. “Now get the fuck up and get the fuck out because Johnny needs me to kill someone.”

“Fine”, J-Dog said. He walked out of the cave and shut the door in Danny’s face with a smirk. “Whoops!”

“Asshole”, Danny chuckled when he opened. “See you later?”

“Sure”, J-Dog shrugged. After Danny had left, J-Dog got back to torturing souls and delegating his Critters. Some of them had become full-fledged demons now, no longer working under his command but he had new Critters as well. OH and Steve finally crawled out of the pit!

J-Dog smirked to himself while he set up new torturing plans but the glowing in his gut distracted him. Last time he saw Charlie, he’d been genuinely happy. He enjoyed the presence of the angel. He’d been trying to forget about his prejudices about what a demon was supposed to feel and do in comparison to angels and in the end, his very essence determined what made him a demon and not the person he was connected to by chance.

Now it seemed like his next obstacle to accepting what was going on with Charlie, was what he felt for the angel. What exactly did he feel? Happy, for sure. But there was also attraction. So what? He was supposed to date the angel? Would that defile Charlie? Take away the purity of his existence? Hell, even if it did disgrace Charlie, why did J-Dog care? He should be HAPPY to defile an angel. Damn, it felt wrong to think of his angel in such way, but hey, he was still a demon after all.

***

Charlie kicked his feet up on the desk, right on top of a neat stack of paper sheets. He could see Dylan’s feathers ruffle outwards when he looked at the feet. “NOT! On my blessings.”

Charlie smirked and kicked the stack when he put his feet down, sending the sheets flying. He felt something happy inside, coming from J-Dog as if he experienced the same mischief. “Oops.”

Dylan gritted his teeth. “Charlie…”

“What? Now you have something to do while you wait for the next blessing to come along”, Charlie shrugged. “I bet you were bored.”

Dylan sighed from his seat behind the desk and leaned down to pick up the sheets, putting them back into the right order. The sheets told him where to perform a blessing and at what times it needed to be done. They needed to be in the right order so he could keep track of time. Life must be tough for a virtue class angel. “Don’t you have to go be a guardian to the children?”

Charlie’s smirk melted off his face at the mentioning. “They’re safe. I’m not making that mistake again.”

“Good”, Dylan muttered under his breath. “Why are you unusually annoying today?”

Charlie planted his elbows on the desk, rested his face in his hands while he watched Dylan work. “I gotta tell you something.”

“What?” Dylan asked, not looking up from what he was doing.

“I met a demon.”

Dylan’s hands stilled and he looked up at Charlie. “You’re connected to a demon too?”

“TOO?” Charlie called out. “When were you gonna tell me you were connected to a demon?!”

Dylan held out his hands to hush Charlie. “Don’t let the others hear you, dude. We usually don’t talk about it, you know? An angel with a demon… not cool.”

“Tell me about it”, Charlie grumbled. “I mean. I do feel like he’s the best demon I could’ve been paired up with, but still.”

Dylan chuckled. “You’re in more luck than me then.”

“Why? How long have you been connected to a demon?” Charlie asked.

Dylan shrugged. “A long time. We met one day and we got weaker from then on, refused to see each other. We really didn’t like each other. I felt like Hell set me up with a fucking monster to spite me. We fought all the time but saw each other because we _had_ to.”

“Crazy”, Charlie muttered. J-Dog’s emotions shifted to curiosity and Charlie wondered what he was curious about. “At least I get along with him.”

“Yeah”, Dylan smirked. “But the fighting and the arguing set us up for some tension and eventually we just…”

“You just what?” Charlie asked.

Dylan made a gesture. “You know.”

“What?” Charlie repeated, cluelessly. Dylan made a face. “We did _the thing_ , okay?”

“You fucked the demon?!” Charlie called out. Dylan leaned over his desk to cover Charlie’s mouth. “Shut the fuck up! They’ll hear you.”

Dylan removed his hand and Charlie gave him a look. “You fucked your demon.”

“I did and nothing changed for me. I was still a good angel. I didn’t fall from Grace. I had my wings, my morals, my duties all the same. So that’s when I realised I had to stop fighting my demon and just _accept_ us.”

“So you stopped fighting?” Charlie asked.

Dylan nodded. “We just… realised we were only fighting and arguing because I’m an angel and he’s a demon but after sleeping with him, nothing changed so we put aside our differences and rolled with it.”

“And?” Charlie asked.

“We’ve been together ever since”, Dylan smiled. “I love him and he loves me.”

Charlie stared at him blankly for a second. “Is that the fate that awaits me and the demon?”

Dylan sighed. “It can. But it doesn’t have to. You and him are connected. You fit perfectly together but no one is going to force you to be anything you don’t want to be. You can just respect each other and be companions, but I have to say I’m way happier with my beloved than I ever was without him.”

Charlie nodded. “I should just talk to him about this, I think. We’ve never really addressed what we wanted to accomplish with this. We just wanted to survive.”

“Yeah, that is how it starts but don’t fight it, either way. You’re still a perfectly good angel if you pursue him”, Dylan shrugged. Charlie put his feet back up on his desk and Dylan gave him a look. “Or a good enough angel in your case.”

“Asshole”, Charlie stuck his tongue out.

***

Charlie had a lot to think about after the things Dylan said. It kept his mind busy for a few weeks before anything came of it. Heaven was feeling stuffed right now. The clouds just weren’t doing it for him at the moment. He’d been spending so much time with J-Dog in the human realm that their connection had grown deeper. He’d been able to see flashes of Hell every now and then and truth be told, Charlie was curious to know what Hell was like. Probably Hellish but at least he’d know.

He’d seen flashes of black and red and swirls of dark purple. In Heaven, the harshest colour he found was a light blue in between the whites and silvers. He’d seen chaos and fire in Hell while Heaven was neatly organised and everyone had their own space, like a giant sky city for angels. The souls were kept elsewhere in Heaven, in a vault.

In a vault?!

Yes, in a vault. Each soul in Heaven possessed the power to live their perfect world but their perfect world had no physical shape. Just in spirit. And their only connections to the physical world, were angels. Each angel possessed the ability to appear into one of those souls’ worlds and communicate with the soul. That was how Charlie was able to talk to the soul he’d been destined to protect.

Anyway, lately the silver city hadn’t been appealing to Charlie and he felt the need to flee. Maybe get some fresh air in the human realm. He appeared at the cliff where he once met J-Dog. Excuse him, where he kicked J-Dog’s ass. He grinned at the memory. It was around sunset so the cliff was more beautiful than it had been last time when it had been full-on night time. The ethereal plane for the angel was fully coloured, but it held a strange feeling. It almost seemed like something dreamy covered the sceneries like veils. Link a pink filter. He sighed and felt a lot better as soon as he arrived there.

Until something hit him in the back and he fell face first into the dirt. He immediately felt the urge to fight race through his veins, ready to attack whatever or whoever tackled him but from his position on the ground, his attacker kept his arms around him but didn’t move.

“What the-…”

“I thought you were in danger.”

Charlie breathed a sigh of relief when he recognised J-Dog’s voice. “Dude, why’d you tackle me?”

“I thought you were in danger”, J-Dog repeated. He let go and moved to stand, sticking out a hand to help the other up. Charlie reluctantly accepted it and dusted himself off. He huffed and raised the feathers on his wings in a hissy fit. “You could’ve just said something. Why’d you think I were in danger?”

J-Dog looked visibly upset, kicking at some loose sand on the ground. He hadn’t let go of Charlie’s hand either. “I lost our connection.”

“What?”

“I couldn’t feel you anymore so I thought something had happened to you and I came to find you. You were nowhere to be found so when I finally saw you here, I just… I was relieved you were okay”, J-Dog muttered.

Charlie blinked. “Maybe you walked into a tunnel and the signal went away?”

“Our connection is not fucking Wi-Fi, Charlie”, J-Dog deadpanned and Charlie grinned. “I know, I know. But I’m okay, really. I just came here to find some peace and then I got tackled.”

J-Dog chuckled. “I’m sorry about that”, he pulled the angel into his arms and rested his chin on the other’s shoulder. “You just had me freaking out a bit. I’ve never lost our connection after only a week.”

“Has it only been a week? Felt like longer”, Charlie whispered.

“Exactly”, J-Dog grumbled. “I’m just happy you’re safe.”

“I am safe”, Charlie hushed him.

It had been several months since they first met. It had become a habit to feel one another’s presence inside.

“Everything alright?” J-Dog asked. He finally let go of the angel but something kept them close to one another. Charlie was vaguely aware of the demon’s hand resting on his waist, still, but he ignored it. “Well, I think we need to talk.”

“Oh?”

Charlie grinned at J-Dog’s distrusting expression. “Calm down.”

J-Dog shrugged it off. “What’s up?”

“I talked to another angel about us.”

“I told you not to!” J-Dog complained but Charlie hushed him immediately. “You talk to Danny about this so I spoke to Dylan about this, too. He’s also connected to a demon.”

“Really?”

Charlie nodded slowly. “He says that his demon was a horrid person and they fought all the time at first.”

“Guess we got lucky we got along then”, J-Dog wondered. Charlie smiled at that. “But that their fighting led to more and they’ve been in a relationship for years. That this connection is destined to be more.”

J-Dog sighed. “Danny’s been saying the same thing. We’re supposed to be together, two pieces of a soul. But we don’t have to do what is expected of us.”

Charlie shook his head. “No, that’s what he said too. We don’t _have_ to, but we can be something if we want to be.”

“Do you want that?” J-Dog asked.

Charlie shrugged. “If we are destined to be a part of each other, why not try?”

“Because we’d be playing a role in a story. We are supposed to be together so we’re together, you know? I don’t want to do what is expected of me.”

Charlie covered the hand on his waist with his own and forced the demon to look at him. They’d never been so close to one another and it was admittedly difficult to think of anything else. “Is it worth the pride of going against someone’s expectations instead of doing what you want?”

J-Dog gave him a thoughtful look. “How can you be sure of what I want?”

“Because we feel the same things”, Charlie carefully smiled. “We are the same. So I ask again. Is your demon pride going to keep you from me?”

J-Dog pulled Charlie closer and smirked. “My pride does a lot for me, but it’ll take one for the team.”

He leaned in to kiss Charlie and the angel couldn’t help but smile into it. It felt powerful. Just the two of them standing on the cliff where they met up a few months ago, in the middle of the night.

Just the three of them.

Three?

In the shadows of the dark night, exhausted from tracking down J-Dog by a dumb piece of clothing, Deuce finally found the leverage he needed.

***

“You’ve got a skip in your step.”

J-Dog froze, hands folded behind his back. There was a nice feeling coming from Charlie, too. “What?”

“You seem unusually cheery”, Johnny hummed. He hadn’t even turned to look at J-Dog, back still towards him as he stood in the hollow cave, looking at a cloud-like screen. Danny grinned by J-Dog’s side. “He does, doesn’t he?”

“What’s up with that?” Johnny wondered. He turned to look at J-Dog who shrugged. His mind started to wander and think about how Johnny somehow seemed to look at him, despite having pitch-black eyes. How could someone tell what he was looking at, that way? It was a mystery.

“Jay?”

“I’m just happy if we beat Matt’s scores. We’ve been fighting hard to collect these souls. You don’t wanna know the demons I’ve fought off to reap souls whose scales were in perfect balance”, J-Dog huffed. “Just to see that look on Deuce’s face.”

“And Matt’s”, Danny added. “Deuce is a bonus. Although we should’ve taken him prisoner, knowing that we could’ve never killed him as demons.”

“We should have taken him into custody, yes”, Johnny agreed. “But you could’ve never foreseen Deuce was a spy for Matt’s district.”

“He backstabbed us all”, J-Dog muttered. “He was Danny’s hunting buddy, but he was all friendly with me, too.”

“So he was your friend?” Danny cooed.

J-Dog huffed. “Demons have no friends.”

Although it stung to think back of Deuce as a part of their district. The way J-Dog went to see Danny, was the exact way J-Dog used to go to Deuce all the time. Just to hang out, just to talk, to fight, to banter, to help him hunt. He shook the thought off and focussed on Danny and Johnny talking about the scores between the districts. Charlie was emanating something soothing to ease J-Dog’s sore memories. Johnny twirled his wrist to bring up a cloud-screen of graphs and numbers. He grinned at the statistics. “Looks like we beat Matt by a hundred souls this time around.”

“Yes!” Danny called out. “In his curly-haired, asshole _face_!”

“Hold on, I gotta call him”, Johnny smirked. He waved the cloud-screen of statistics away and whipped up a new one that remained black for several seconds. Then the nothingness shifted until Matt’s face appeared. “Johnny. Summoning me, now, are we?”

“Yes, we are”, Johnny grinned. Matt’s eyes were the same pitch-black as Johnny’s. “Have you seen the statistics? They’re in.”

Matt pursed his lips. “I can’t say I have but judging by your call, you beat us, didn’t you?”

Johnny chuckled. “Oh how you guess it, Da Kurlzz. I always knew you didn’t have the talent to keep your demons disciplined. You have more demons under your reign than I do and I’m still scoring better than you.”

Danny elbowed J-Dog. “I know you’re not happy cause we beat Matt.”

“What? Of course, I’m happy to beat Matt”, J-Dog huffed. “I love winning.”

The two looked up when Johnny got louder but he was still having his childish discussion with Matt. It was entertaining, at least. Charlie’s energy changed into mischief and J-Dog just _knew_ he was bugging Dylan.

“You love winning, but you’re unusually happy because something happened with Charlie, aren’t you?” Danny teased.

J-Dog huffed. “What makes you think that?”

“Just a hunch”, Danny shrugged. “And the fact you have a feather stuck to your sole.”

J-Dog looked down and found a single, white feather peeking from beneath his shoe. He smiled sheepishly, picked the feather off his sole and flicked it away somewhere into the Hellfire. “Coincidence?”

“Come on”, Danny said. “What happened?”

“Sh, I don’t want Johnny to know”, J-Dog muttered but Danny gave him a look. Johnny and Matt held onto each other’s attention like they were part of a different world with their constant passive aggressive behaviour. J-Dog grinned. “Alright, alright. Charlie knows an angel in Heaven, Dylan, who shares a connection with a demon. They’ve been together for a mighty long time so Charlie just wanted to give it a go. I don’t know. It’s weird to mention it but it made sense at the time.”

“No, it’s okay. It makes sense”, Danny said. “I know plenty of demons who can’t explain _why_ they feel so strongly about their angel, but it’s nature and it is in your nature to _fight_ that feeling, but giving in to it, is really what’s gonna make you happy.”

“Thanks”, J-Dog muttered. “For like, not rubbing it in that you’ve been right all along.”

Danny huffed and folded his arms. “Why would I do that?”

J-Dog raised an eyebrow and Danny cracked a smile. “Oh I’m gonna ‘told you so’ all over the place when we’re done here, dude. Just don’t want to do it in front of Johnny and Matt.”

“Good. Very considerate”, J-Dog smirked.

“How long did it take you to start banging him?” Danny wondered. “Few months?”

J-Dog elbowed him. “We’re not banging.”

Danny raised an eyebrow.

“Yet”, J-Dog added.

“I knew it.”

Johnny finally ended his call to Matt and spun around. “What are you two still doing here? Go reap some souls! We oughta keep the win streak going. I just boasted about our wins so it would be insanely pathetic if we lost, now.

Danny and J-Dog gave a nod and walked away while Johnny split the tasks of all souls over his demon army.

“Your boyfriend’s unusually uptight after a win”, J-Dog teased.

Danny sighed. “I know. He just really wants to win again.”

“You didn’t even correct me when I said he was your boyfriend”, J-Dog teased but Danny only rolled his eyes.

***

_“How does a demon get busy with their angel?” J-Dog wondered aloud. He lay on the weapon table after yet another work-related injury. This time not because he’d been too busy with Charlie or thinking about Charlie, but simply because he’d gotten too close to the Hellfire on one of his favourite torture sprees. It barely hurt but after a while, the flesh really began to smell._

_As for Charlie, he was no longer a distraction. After months of honing their connection and figuring out how to filter certain stuff about one another, J-Dog was now able to see flashes through Charlie’s eyes, to feel him inside every single day, occasionally he even managed to communicate a quick thought to him. Like they were truly one and the same person. It only felt stronger the more days went by._

_Danny sighed as he smeared some goo on the barbecue-like flesh. “When a demon and an angel love each other very much…”_

_“Dude”, J-Dog interrupted. “You know what I mean.”_

_“I don’t, really”, Danny shrugged. “I thought you knew how to use your dick? Wait, are you a demon virgin?”_

_J-Dog punched Danny in the gut with the arm on Danny’s side. The hunter groaned when he took the hit but remained standing. “No, really, what’s up with that question?”_

_“Well, I can’t go to Heaven. Charlie can’t come to Hell. We have to do it in the human realm and there is zero privacy there. Any demon or angel could walk up to us”, J-Dog shrugged._

_“So you haven’t fucked yet?” Danny concluded and J-Dog could feel his cheeks heat. “We have. But like, the first time we were just… we didn’t even think of someone finding us until afterwards but now Charlie just freezes whenever he thinks of anyone walking by for some reason and it sucks”, J-Dog grumbled. He felt a confirming sigh from Charlie inside._

_“Cute to know you’ve slept with your angel”, Danny smirked. “Who topped?”_

_J-Dog snorted. “Shut up.”_

_“Oh, so Charlie topped?”_

_J-Dog gave him another stomp in the gut. “You are such an asshole.”_

_“I don’t know what to do about the lack of privacy either, Jay. I’d say, find yourself a cave and fuck like human exhibitionists do. Be afraid to get caught and enjoy that excitement”, Danny chuckled. “Or just don’t care and fuck in the middle of the streets.”_

_“Disgusting”, J-Dog huffed. “But it’s Charlie who doesn’t want to do shit when we’re out in the open.”_

_“Angels tend to be more prudish.”_

_“Speaking of prudish”, J-Dog grinned. “I saw you sneak out of Johnny’s cave last night. Why were you in there so late?”_

_Danny wrapped a bandage around J-Dog’s wound. “Fine… We’re a thing.”_

_J-Dog jumped up and off the table, ignoring the wound ripping wide open again. “I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!”_

_Danny chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”_

It was weird to remember it now of all times, but he did. J-Dog gazed at Charlie to his right. He was staring into the grey sun-lit sky. J-Dog turned sideways and let one of his ash grey claws rest on Charlie’s wing beneath him. You’d think it would hurt to rest on it, but Charlie said it was fine. It felt soft and strong beneath his weight. “Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“You look good in the sunlight, even if it’s grey”, J-Dog mused. Charlie chuckled. “Thanks.”

A comfortable silence washed over them when Charlie gestured for Jay to get off his wing. J-Dog scooted and Charlie rolled sideways in the grass, wings now behind his back. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m ready.”

J-Dog blinked. “To… To bottom for me?”

Charlie scrunched his nose. “What? No. To show you how I bless booze so I can grab it.”

It took J-Dog a second before he chuckled. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, dude”, Charlie smirked. “Wait, do you want me to bottom?”

“Maybe one day”, J-Dog shrugged. “But you were so serious, I thought something like that was about to come out.”

“Blessing booze IS serious”, Charlie argued before he turned serious again. “But I’m happy enough we managed to find a solution for the lack of privacy. One thing at a time, dude.”

“Of course”, J-Dog mused. He pressed his nose into Charlie’s shoulder, scooting a little closer. “Did you sometimes look through my eyes?”

Charlie nodded. “I saw a little bit before you got stabbed by that Critter. The second-hand pain sort of threw me out of our bond so I couldn’t see what happened next. Is it healing well?”

“It is. I hurt myself weekly while torturing. I’m surprised Danny still patches me up. Last week he had to patch up a burn mark rotting and this week a Critter accidentally stabbed me instead of a soul.”

Charlie chuckled. “Dangerous occupation, huh?”

“Yeah, it is”, J-Dog grumbled. “It’s not sitting on a roof and watching your souls be happy.”

“Low blow”, Charlie stuck out his tongue. “It’s hard work for me, too. I have to remind myself daily to annoy Dylan, to fuck with some of the souls who have _just_ arrived. Sometimes I pretend they’re in Hell and I’m the one to break it to them.”

J-Dog got up when checking the time in Hell and helped Charlie up as well. “Are you sure you’re not a demon then?”

“Just a devious angel”, Charlie stated. “But your demon is rubbing off a little on me.”

“As your angel is rubbing off on me. I’d almost wanna bless a bottle of booze instead of curse it.”

“You can’t bless”, Charlie argued. “But you should’ve seen Dylan’s face. I shuffled his list of blessings and he was all ‘Oh my next blessing is next week?!’. He got so mad when he found out I touched the stack again.”

J-Dog smiled while he stared at Charlie. The angel cocked his head. “What?”

“I love you.”

Charlie shrugged but couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “I love you too, you demon.”

“Especially when you do evil shit like that to your buddy”, J-Dog added.

***

_J-Dog looked down at his hands. The inky claws were replaced with normal, skin tone fingers. In his peripheral vision, he could see plush, white feathers siding him. He could see it all and although he felt like smiling, this body was not his to command. He was in a forest, enjoying the smell of trees and the rustling of the wind through the leaves, covered in a rosy lighting. The ground shook under a massive force, hitting the mud. He could feel his head turn in the direction of the sound, arms shielding his face from the dirt flying his way. He looked around frantically but couldn’t see what was happening. All he saw, were shadows and he felt a shove in his back. He stumbled forward but stretched his wings wide to knock off the offender. It worked and he was able to stand again._

_Though before he could have a good look at the enemy, something latched onto his wrist and twisted behind his back, his knees buckled and both hands were tied. He wildly twisted his wings, attempting to break free but they’d been clipped as well. J-Dog felt a scream exit his lungs, wings and arms pushing against the restraints but they didn’t budge._

_“Awe, didn’t see us coming, did you?”_

_J-Dog recognised that voice, wanted to call out for the body to flee, to get away from him as soon as possible. The eyes turned to look at the familiar face of Deuce. “It’s not personal, my little angel. You just happen to be connected to a demon who’s been bringing home a lot of souls and I’d do anything to win from that smug bastard.”_

_J-Dog felt the rage inside build and he wanted to punch Deuce in the face, but he couldn’t do anything. He felt a tug on the ties around his wrists and fell to his back. He could see the back of their heads, Yuma and Gadjet as they dragged him through the dirt. “He’ll find you and when he does, he’ll kill you”, J-Dog felt himself say._

_Deuce chuckled. “Demons can’t kill demons.”_

_“But angels can”, J-Dog said. “Don’t know if you got the clue but I have wings. I’m an angel.”_

_“A harmless one. You’re tied up”, Deuce argued._

_J-Dog chuckled, a very cold and harsh sound. “Oh boy, I can’t wait for him to free me so I can rip you apart.”_

_Deuce set his jaw and gave him a hard kick in the gut._

Before J-Dog could see more, he was knocked out of Charlie’s eyes by the force of the kick. That one _hurt_. He felt out of breath from trying so hard to push through and respond to the situation. He could feel his stomach turn but there was nothing to purge so he remained hunched on the ground. It was near dawn and he had to remind himself he hadn’t been dreaming. He’d been watching what Charlie was up to on his morning walk.

He’d been watching how Charlie got captured by Deuce.

He shuddered with rage at the thought. Charlie was right. J-Dog would find him and when he would, he would kill him. There was no time to waste. J-Dog had to find weapons, gear up and set off to get back at Deuce.

Though there were a lot of things to consider. Deuce was a hunter demon so he most likely visited the human realm in hunter mode, enabling him to touch things in the human plane. If he were smart, he did it like that just for the tiny chance J-Dog wouldn’t think of that option. Either way, J-Dog had to access the realm in hunter mode, too. He needed weapons _and_ access to hunter mode. Well…

Obviously he had to see Danny. He wasted no time in getting there. He ignored his Critters as he walked by them. They could just torture the souls on their own. J-Dog had more important things to think about. When he reached Danny’s door, he knocked on it frantically. J-Dog felt Charlie’s pain through their connection and winced at the sensation.

Danny had barely opened it before J-Dog barged in with the most chaotic energy the hunter had seen him in before. “Wow, good morning to you, too.”

“Charlie’s in danger”, J-Dog said. “Deuce took him captive and I have to go free him.”

“Oh shit”, Danny breathed. “That’s some serious shit.”

“I need weapons and you need to get me to the human realm in hunter mode so I can kick his ass”, J-Dog demanded. He grimaced when Charlie’s pain broke through again.

Danny gave an affirmative hum. J-Dog noticed Danny wore his full hunter gear. He was clad in leather, black hoodie over his head with a mask propped up on it. It was the stealth outfit of a hunter class demon. Or at least, Danny’s stealth gear. Various belts ran across his hips, legs and across his chest. Daggers, knives and what not stuck out by the handle. An axe sheathed and tied to his back. It was a more efficient way of carrying weapons than the duffel bag. They were ready for use anytime. “Why are you geared up?”

“Big mission, but it can wait. Losing your angel is something we need to prevent here. If Deuce kills him, it’s over”, Danny said. The table was empty, which really said a lot about the amount of weapons Danny had on him right now. He pulled out a drawer from the table, took out a cloth and unrolled it onto the table, revealing more daggers. “Do I die if Charlie dies?” J-Dog asked.

“No”, Danny said. He checked the markings on the daggers and tossed J-Dog a pair of them. “You’re good at close combat so I’m giving you some marked daggers, maybe one of my new toys, too.”

“What happens if Charlie dies?” J-Dog asked as he put away the daggers.

Danny pulled a flask from his pocket. “Then your connection becomes the void. If you thought being bored in Hell enough to rip your spine out a few months ago, was bad, then you can’t imagine what the void feels like. It never leaves, it eats at you and it makes you wish for Purgatory sometimes. It’s to have loved and lost intensely.”

J-Dog said nothing for a second before he cocked his head. “Danny? Did you… did you lose your angel?”

Danny looked up from the flask he was holding onto. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a hunter. I can’t form a bond with an angel. It would be horrible for my job. I fight angels on a daily basis. Besides, if I had the void inside, I wouldn’t be able to be with Johnny cause no relationship can replace your angel.”

“I can’t believe you and Johnny are a thing, though”, J-Dog wondered aloud. Danny stuck out the flask. “Here, my new toy.”

J-Dog brought the flask to eye-level and stared at the green contents inside. “Sooo… I drink this and?”

A single painful sensation ran through J-Dog, coming from Charlie and then Charlie’s energy settled down. He was either asleep or passed out. Judging by the situation, it was most likely the latter.

“No, don’t drink it!” Danny hissed. “It’s acid, bites through anything. If Charlie’s restrained or in a cage, you can use it to bite through the material.”

“Why doesn’t it bite through the flask?” J-Dog wondered.

Danny rolled his eyes. “I’m not an amateur. I know my tools and what to do to keep them contained.”

“No wonder Johnny keeps giving you weapons to back you up. You’re damn good at this shit”, J-Dog was amazed. “But I can’t just save Charlie with some acid and two daggers, dude.”

“No, but you can with Johnny and I.”

“What?” J-Dog whipped his head up. “Dude, you’re not coming with me.”

“Hell I am”, Danny huffed. He ushered J-Dog out of the cave, closed the door behind him.

“Didn’t you want to be less involved in my shit?” J-Dog asked.

“Yeah”, Danny shrugged. “But this is personal. He took your angel and he infiltrated our district to betray us. This is revenge and I’m sure Johnny wants a piece of it. He’s been dying for a fight, sick of being stuck with delegations lately.”

“This is not a killing spree for fun”, J-Dog argued. “This is my Charlie. If any of you get in my way…”

“We won’t. You’ll get in our way, if anything”, Danny chuckled. J-Dog gave up on arguing and followed as Danny led the way to Johnny. Before they reached him, J-Dog pulled Danny back by his arm. “Wait, but Johnny doesn’t know about Charlie.”

Danny pulled his arm out of his grip and rolled his eyes. He continued his path into the cave. “Yo Johnny.”

“Danny, all set for your departure?” Johnny asked, not turning around. Danny sighed. “Afraid not, boss. Something came up.”

Johnny turned around, spotting J-Dog. “Jay? Danny, this better be important.”

“Deuce has his angel. Want in on this fight?”

J-Dog looked apologetic, expecting a real scolding from Johnny. Or at least he thought he would have to explain himself but Johnny blinked. “Are you offering me a piece of the action?”

“I am, dude. Let’s go kick that traitor’s ass. That’ll teach him and Matt not to mess with us again”, Danny smirked.

Johnny closed his fist and all cloud-screens with it. “I’m in.”

“What? Not even gonna ask him what he means by ‘ _my_ angel’?” J-Dog piped up. He knew it was dumb to question such a gift, but he didn’t understand.

Johnny shook his head. “Oh Jay, I know everything my demons are up to. I knew about Charlie from the day you tossed him that vial. I’m the one who _told_ Danny about the connection to angels so why would you think I wouldn’t know about the connection after you supposedly ‘fought off’ an angel? Even if you met your angel through battle, the connection would have still been established.”

“You always knew?” J-Dog asked. “Shit, but at least I knew about you and Danny, too.”

“Me and Danny?” Johnny asked.

Danny cleared his throat. “Guys, we need to leave if we wanna catch the angel before Deuce kills him. Or tortures him. Who knows in what state we’ll find him in.”

J-Dog gave a nod and left the cave. “I’m ready.”

Johnny snapped his fingers. Black smoke whirled upwards out of the ground and took shape around his body, changing his regular clothing into battle-worthy armour. The near-black plated armour made Johnny look like an absolute tank on the battlefield. He stuck out his hand and the black smoke formed a mace. The handle consisted of braided, black leather. The tip held a black frame with dark purple, crystal panels. The sides were spiked and one, long spike protruded from the tip. He sheathed the mace onto his back. “It’s been ages since I got to use any of this.”

“Since you were a hunter yourself”, Danny smirked. “Let’s go.”

Johnny snapped his fingers again and they appeared in the human realm. There was no uncomfortable moment of adjusting, it just seemed like they belonged there. The world was coloured as well, since it was the hunter mode of the ethereal plane. Danny clapped his hands together. “Alright, what can you tell about the environment they took Charlie to?”

J-Dog shrugged. “I got knocked out of Charlie before they got there.”

“What? Really? So we have no idea where he could be?”

“Wait”, J-Dog said. “They dragged him there from where I saw him, though. He was presumably close to their district because I didn’t recognise the scenery but Charlie would never go into that district so maybe it’s on the border? I never go near the border.”

“Maybe”, Johnny agreed. His black eyes seemed to radiate an even darker shade in the daylight of the human realm. He closed them and when they opened, they were regular white-iris blue eyes. It was strange to see Johnny with them but it was clear those weren’t his own eyes. He said nothing.

J-Dog opened his mouth but Danny hushed him. “He’s looking through the eyes of other demons. To look for traces of your angel.”

“Wow”, J-Dog muttered. “He can do that?”

“Only with the defenders of the border”, Danny replied. “Their spirit is Johnny’s to command.”

“Can’t I find Charlie by following our connection?” J-Dog asked, the idea hitting him. Danny shook his head. “If Deuce has a brain, he’ll use a tool to muddy Charlie’s trace. Might even send you in the wrong direction.”

Johnny blinked, eyes pitch-black once more. “One of the defenders knows of tracks that look like someone was dragged over the border. We should check it out.”

J-Dog gave a nod and Johnny shook his head. “Jay, I hope your angel is worth the effort. I’ve never seen you this committed to anything but hunting souls and torturing before. Quite the change you’ve made.”

The coordinates weren’t far from where they landed in the human realm. Though while Johnny and Danny went ahead, J-Dog hesitated. He had changed. He hadn’t been thinking about it much, because he’d been happy. He’d been living towards the days he’d see Charlie again. Before he met Charlie, J-Dog would torture, reap souls, mutilate himself for fun, maybe sleep on a rock somewhere and have fun dropping Critters into the Hellfire. Man, his life had changed. Now his days were spent with delegating Critters to do his job, reaping souls himself only occasionally and seeing Charlie. His gore-filled mind had become one of angel visions.

When did that happen?

When did he lose his edge?

J-Dog shrugged off the idea forcefully. He had to save Charlie and kick Deuce’s ass. No one touched what belonged to him. He followed Johnny and Danny in their tracks, quickly reaching the defender they’d been talking about. Defenders were very stoic demons with no mind of their own. They followed orders, did so smoothly as any living demon would move or speak, but they were unable to form an opinion or think of things for themselves besides their tasks at hand. On the border there were marks of dragging a large shape in the dirt. J-Dog walked along the tracks while Johnny spoke with the defender. The marks stopped suddenly and J-Dog felt like it had to be the place he saw through Charlie’s eyes.

“Jay!” Danny called out.

J-Dog quickly returned to the pair. One of the defenders turned to look at him, eyes blank of any expression as he stuck out his hand. A single white feather. J-Dog took the feather and felt a shiver run down his spine. This was definitely Charlie’s. Although the angel’s energy still hadn’t changed yet, he felt an invisible string connect the feeling in his gut to the feather in his hand.

“He’s been here”, J-Dog said.

Johnny looked up at the sky. “The defender says they were called to defend the border from another demon, but it must have been a diversion so they could get Charlie across here.”

“Must have been”, Danny endorsed. “But if the angel complements Jay, out of all demons, I’m sure he put up a fight.”

“Who would’ve thought we’d end up freeing an angel one day”, Johnny muttered to himself with a grin.

There it was again. That feeling.

They were moving with a purpose, moving to free Charlie and to kick Deuce’s ass. But that wasn’t the only time J-Dog had a purpose before. He’d been _living_ a purpose in life. His purpose had been seeing Charlie all this time. It felt strange inside. Strange to notice he went from a top tier torturer with nothing to do, to a happy demon with a purpose.

Strange indeed. He furrowed his eyebrows and felt a tinge of annoyance when Charlie’s emotions shifted inside him. He didn’t want the angel distracting him.

The three of them followed the tracks in the dirt, careful not to step on anything or talk too much to betray their position. Being in Matt’s territory made them an easy target. _What about Matt’s defenders?_ Matt had no defenders. He didn’t defend the borders because he said his demons could kick their asses easily anyway.

“Stealth mode, guys”, Johnny whispered. The three of them snuck around, careful to see if they were getting any closer. Funny for Johnny to claim stealth mode in his plated armour.

“What if it’s an ambush?” Danny asked.

Johnny shrugged. “We can take any amount of them. Matt won’t be there, for sure. He never goes for battle. Even if I’d love to beat him in one.”

J-Dog raised an eyebrow but Danny grinned. “High-class demons have a couple of tricks up their sleeve, dude.”

Johnny held out a hand to stop them both as he was walking up front. They heard noise. Voices. J-Dog closed his eyes. _Charlie?_

A loud scream caught their attention. J-Dog could feel a numb sensation in his chest. Charlie was hurt, but that scream was his way of showing him he was still there. “That’s Charlie.”

“They’re close”, Danny said. “I’ll scout the area.”

Johnny gave a nod and Danny snuck through the trees of the woods like a ghost in the shadows. It was remarkable how quiet he was. J-Dog sighed. “How did Deuce even find out about Charlie and I?”

“I have no clue”, Johnny said. “Hunters are good at sticking their nose into someone else’s business or getting into trouble. Danny included.”

“Good thing he has a high-class boyfriend to save him”, J-Dog said but Johnny raised an eyebrow. Danny returned. “They’re just up ahead. Deuce, Yuma and Gadjet. I didn’t see any other demon waiting to ambush us but my guess is that their pride kept them from inviting other demons to steal their accomplishment.”

“Could be”, Johnny admitted. “No demon ever wants to give up on taking credit for an achievement. I bet Matt would be pleased if Deuce managed to kill an angel _and_ render one of my best low-class demons useless.”

“Awe”, J-Dog grinned. “I’m one of your best?”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “Sometimes. Let’s just go.”

“Jay, you go forward. They’ll be expecting you. Johnny and I will go around and see what we can do. They’re keeping Charlie in a cage, as expected so maybe you should give me the acid, instead”, Danny said. J-Dog took out the flask and handed it over. “Let’s do it. Let’s free my angel.”

“Lovesick demons, I’ll never understand them”, Johnny chuckled. “If it were up to me, I’d kill the angel myself. But killing an angel that belongs to one of my demons has proven to be bad for them so I won’t.”

“Good to know”, J-Dog scoffed. They split up and walked through the woods. J-Dog saw a grass field clearing up ahead. He could see Deuce and behind him Gadjet was chilling on the ground, Yuma was up in a tree on the side. Between Deuce and Gadjet stood a cage. If the cage held Charlie, then Charlie must be that hunched heap on the cage floor. J-Dog felt his eyes glow red in rage. How dare they touch _his_ angel?

How dare they touch anything that was his?!

He ran into the clearing. “You fucking asshole. How dare you?”

Deuce immediately grinned, nearing J-Dog. “Oh hey, Jay. Long-time no see. I hope you didn’t mind the wait. Gadjet and Yuma needed a long time healing before we could cook up a plan to get back at you.”

“Get back at me? For what? For a single beating?” J-Dog asked. “If anything, the beating was getting back at you for pretending to be a part of our district. I can’t believe you were once a chill demon with Danny and I.”

Deuce stared at the ground. “We all have tough choices to make. I had my loyalty to Matt. I’m not sorry for doing my job well.”

“I should’ve never trusted you”, J-Dog hissed. “Now I’m going to ask once. Give me back Charlie.”

“He’s dead”, Deuce grinned but J-Dog clenched his jaw. “I know he’s alive. You clearly don’t know how this bond between us works.”

“Oh, sorry, I was speaking in future terms. I know all about angel-demon bonds”, Deuce grinned. “Yuma.”

Up in the tree, Yuma held a bow and arrow, pointed at Charlie in the cage. The hunched form moved, finally turning to reveal Charlie’s face. A nasty cut beneath his hairline painted half his face red, almost like war paint. He gave a weak smirk to J-Dog. Jay unsheathed his daggers. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“We’ll dare. After we beat your ass, we’ll have your angel kill you, whether he likes it or not. He’ll be our puppet before he dies, too.”

 _Why wait?_ J-Dog thought. He could feel a second thought enter, one coming from Charlie. _It’s no fun for them if you have nothing left to fight for._

Fun.

That was all this was about.

Fun.

It would have been fun. J-Dog would’ve had a blast doing this type of thing with Deuce and his henchmen, if it hadn’t been about Charlie’s life. It was a strange sensation in his gut. He didn’t know how he felt about it. Charlie had changed so fucking much about his life. Knowing that this could have been a fun fight if Charlie hadn’t been involved.

Behind Deuce, J-Dog spotted Danny and further to the left, he could see Johnny making his way to Yuma’s tree. J-Dog took a step but Yuma readied his bow so he stopped. “If I come closer, you’ll kill him anyway, won’t you?”

“You get it”, Deuce said.

Johnny reached the bottom of the tree, flexed his fingers while he pointed upwards. Black smoke emerged from the tips of his fingers, reaching upwards and swirling around Yuma’s leg. The demon gave a startled shout. “What the?!”

The black smoke was all around his arms and legs. He tried to let go of the arrow to shoot Charlie but the bow was stuck in the black smoke as well. “Deuce!”

Deuce looked up at Yuma and turned around to spot Johnny on the bottom. “Your district leader came with you?!”

“He doesn’t take kindly to traitors of the district”, Danny said, revealing himself from the shadows. He pulled a knife from his side and threw it at Gadjet who rolled over to dodge it before he stood up. “Fucking Danny, again.”

Johnny yanked the black smoke downward with his fingers, snatching Yuma out of the tree and sending him flying before he smacked into the grassy ground beneath. Johnny retracted the smoke. “I’ve been dying to fight again but it wouldn’t be fair to use high-class powers. I could evaporate the three of you with a snap of my fingers. So let’s fight like low-class demons.”

Yuma crawled towards the bow but Johnny stepped onto his hand. “But leave the angel alone until the fight is over or I will snap my fingers anyway and ruin everyone’s fun.”

Yuma snarled at Johnny who smirked down at him. “Oh we’re gonna have so much _fun_.”

Danny charged at Gadjet. Deuce tried to defend Gadjet but J-Dog finally dared to step into the battlefield with Charlie safe. He had to get closer to Deuce if he wanted to succeed in battle because Danny was right. J-Dog’s strength was in close combat. Deuce’s? Not so much so it was no surprise Deuce tried to maintain a distance. Though Johnny noticed and dragged Yuma towards them to keep Deuce between him, Danny and J-Dog until eventually J-Dog managed to corner Deuce and his daggers were of use.

Danny had absolutely no trouble pinning Gadjet to the ground in no time. “J-Dog and I beat the three of you by ourselves. Even with an arm paralysed. What made you think you’d win this time?”

“Who says it’s just the three of us?” Deuce interrupted.

In the clearing, patches of black smoke appeared, taking shapes of Critters with all kinds of weapons. Yuma smirked at Johnny. “Matt knows that black smoke trick, too, you know. He gave us an army. You can’t surprise us. You’re just like Matt in strength.”

“How dare you!”, Johnny finally took the mace out of the sheath on his back and swung it at Yuma. “Compare me to none, cause I’ve got the heart of a champion.”

Yuma dodged a swing of the mace but Johnny was quick enough to strike a second time downward, hitting the other demon in the collarbone. It snapped with a sickening crack and Johnny raised the mace again to render Yuma useless but several smoke Critters jumped on top of Johnny. There were at least two biting into his plated armour. He spun around, hoping to throw them off, but they stuck to him like glue. He swung his mace downward and hit the dirt with a deafening blow, sending all smoke creatures flying. Danny had Gadjet pinned down, but Deuce attacked him from behind. The two were able to keep Danny occupied. J-Dog glanced at Johnny who walked up to Danny to help him and J-Dog ran to the cage. He dodged any shadow creatures lunging for him and kneeled by the bars of the cage. “Charlie?”

The angel looked up at him, the war paint-like blood on his face was dry, but Charlie seemed weak. He scoffed. “ _I_ underestimated my opponent this time, I’ll admit that.”

J-Dog chuckled. “But you’re good?”

“Yeah, yeah. He just really… gave me a good beating”, Charlie wheezed. He weakly flexed his wings, one hung lower than the other. “Broken wing and all, but I’m healing so don’t worry. Fight them off, dude.”

“I will”, J-Dog promised. He stuck out his hand to caress Charlie’s cheek. “I’ll wipe the fucking floor with their intestines.”

“Love it when you talk demon to me”, Charlie sighed before he lay down to rest. J-Dog’s eyes became red once more. How _dare_ Deuce take what belonged to him? How _dare_ those filthy demons lay hands on Charlie? How _dare_ they even _look_ at him! He was _his_ property. J-Dog twirled the daggers in his hands and slashed through several smoke creatures on his way to the fight. They vanished into thin air and did not return. Guess Danny had given him some type of special daggers. Must be the markings. Behind him, Johnny was swinging his mace at Yuma and Gadjet. Yuma heavily clutched his shoulder with the broken bone but Gadjet was still unharmed. Deuce and Danny were battling for dominance on the ground and Deuce was currently straddling Danny. J-Dog set off and ran for Deuce, daggers out to stab through his neck, but Gadjet appeared last minute, blocking the attack. J-Dog managed to carve his dagger into Gadjet’s arm. He hissed in pain so J-Dog grabbed him to spin him around. Gadjet lost his balance and J-Dog kicked him to the ground. He stepped his foot into Gadjet’s back and stabbed a dagger into his back, in between the shoulder blades. Gadjet roared and managed to make J-Dog stumble but J-Dog grabbed onto the dagger and dragged it downward through Gadjet’s back. The blood that gushes out of the wound, was enough to know he’d hit some major arteries and most likely some vital organs. Gadjet would no longer be a problem.

Johnny jumped out of the way when Yuma came at him and looked over his shoulder to see Danny finally gaining the upper hand when smoke creatures jumped for him and J-Dog. Johnny scrunched his nose. “I said. No high-class powers”, he grumbled before he held out his mace. The purple, crystal panels in the tip glowed and seemed to suck all black smoke into his weapon until none of the creatures were left on the battlefield. “We settle this fight, as low-class demons.”

The purple panel gave a final glow before Johnny slashed the mace at Yuma. Yuma jumped back and the spiked head of the mace missed him, but the razor sharp edge of the top spike slashed through his abdomen and left a bleeding wound. He stumbled and fell. With one arm intact, he turned and crawled away from Johnny but Johnny impaled him with the tip of the mace, large enough to poke through the front. Sometimes he wondered if he could’ve used his mace as a spear if he threw it hard enough.

Danny had Deuce pinned beneath him. “Yuma and Gadjet are unavailable to save your ass, just like last time. Only now, we won’t allow you to flee.”

Deuce gave him a nasty look and turned to look at Charlie’s cage. “If you kill me, you’ll never find the key.”

Danny chuckled. “Awe, you think we need a key.”

Danny threw the flask of acid back at J-Dog who walked up to the cage and dripped some of the acid onto the bars. The bars immediately melted into nothing and bit upwards to resume their path. Before they knew it, there was a hole big enough to fit the angel in the bars.

Deuce looked down. “Fine, I was wrong. I should’ve never infiltrated your district. You’re strong demons and I envy your ability to work together so seamlessly. Even if I became the traitor, you were still the closest thing I had to companions all my life. Almost like friends, if anything.”

Danny looked up at J-Dog and Johnny and smirked. “We’re a dysfunctional squad, but you’re right. We work together because we do it well.”

“Make it quick”, Deuce asked. “I deserve it.”

“What?” J-Dog asked. “We’re not gonna kill him, right? We can’t. We’re demons.”

Johnny held onto his mace with both hands and stepped forward. He held it out to Deuce until the tip of the mace touched his chest. Deuce closed his eyes. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I didn’t stay in the district.”

Johnny gave a nod and J-Dog expected him to push the mace through his heart, but instead, the purple panels glowed once more. Deuce crumbled and disappeared into dust particles, sucked into the mace. By the end, Johnny’s mace was pointing at nothing.

“I didn’t know you could kill a demon”, J-Dog muttered.

Johnny shrugged. “When a subordinate goes rogue or disobeys, I can send them to Purgatory. Deuce betrayed our district, so I sent him there.”

“What about Gadjet and Yuma?” Danny asked.

Johnny shook his head. “Although they’re his accomplices in this plan, they never betrayed my district. I don’t meddle in demon feuds that don’t concern me. They’ll heal.”

“They’ll want revenge”, J-Dog muttered.

Johnny sheathed the mace onto his back. “I’ll be looking forward to that battle.”

J-Dog turned to look at Charlie. The angel had crawled out of the cage and now stood to full height. His wounds had healed, except for the broken wing, but even the cut on his forehead had vanished. J-Dog looked back at Johnny and Danny who gestured for him to go. J-Dog neared Charlie hesitantly. He felt something strange inside. Something felt different.

He stuck out his hand and took Charlie’s into his own. “I hope they didn’t hurt you too badly.”

Charlie shook his head. “I was mostly afraid of what they’d do to you once you found me.”

“Good. No one touches what’s mine”, J-Dog grumbled. Charlie chuckled and hugged J-Dog tightly. He hid his face into J-Dog’s shoulder. J-Dog wrapped both arms firmly around Charlie, resting a hand on his back. “This entire situation made me realise something.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, Charlie. I love you _a lot_ and I’ve never loved anyone before in my demon lifetime. I used to take things day by day and I was bored all the time, living my best torturing days one at a time. With you, I had things to look forward to, desires, a purpose, even. You’ve given my life a purpose.”

Charlie smiled into J-Dog’s shoulder but said nothing. J-Dog inhaled deeply, there was a slight hitch in his breath before he said, in a low rumble: “Only stupid humans want a purpose in life.”

Charlie furrowed his eyebrows but before he could ask, J-Dog cleaved his black claws through Charlie’s back and through his heart. The angel shuddered, convulsed in J-Dog’s hold. “I can’t afford to love you anymore. I can’t afford to have you as my weakness”, J-Dog explained as Charlie’s knees buckled. He attempted to speak but only coughed blood onto J-Dog’s shoulder. J-Dog gently brought him to the ground, held him close to his chest.

“I’m sorry it has to end this way, and I’m sorry it had to be you to encounter me and become your demon bond. I’m sorry we couldn’t be what we were destined to be, Charlie.”

J-Dog watched the light dim in Charlie’s piercing blue eyes that stared up at him accusingly, confused, betrayed. Those beautiful eyes, those amazing, radiant wings. Both became subdued. There was a deep ache in J-Dog’s chest. Charlie’s emotions made way for a gaping hole. He took a deep breath and got up. Charlie’s body slipped from his grip like a ragdoll.

Danny and Johnny stared at him in shock. J-Dog’s claws and hoodie were covered in angel blood. He wiped the claw he had used to impale Charlie, on his pants. “Let’s go home.”

Johnny shook his head, smirk tugging at his lips. “That must’ve taken a lot of courage.”

“It did”, J-Dog muttered. “Let’s never talk about this again.”

Danny blinked but said nothing and followed the two of them. J-Dog shrugged. “Guess you’re the only lovebirds of our squad now.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Johnny asked, looking genuinely confused.

J-Dog raised an eyebrow. “Because you and Danny are a thing?”

Johnny shook his head. “We’re not. Danny’s-…”

“Danny’s lying to you”, Danny interrupted. “I was sick of your assumptions that Johnny and I were a thing so once I admitted it, you stopped talking about it. It was refreshing not to hear all the Danny 3 Tears comments.”

“Oh”, J-Dog muttered. “Guess we’re a loveless pack of assholes, then.”

“I like that”, Danny said, giving Johnny a hard stare but Johnny said nothing.

***

Ever since Charlie died, J-Dog had been different. His demon pride could cry victory because he no longer had a purpose in life. He had a job to keep up, expectations to keep high, torturing to do, reaping, fighting angels and rival demons alike. Though it was all meaningless. It was all just so… colourless to live like this. Danny had noticed the effects of the void inside J-Dog. Their banter ceased, the jokes came to a stop. It was almost like J-Dog had become a Critter himself, waiting for something to do. Sometimes Danny found J-Dog standing at the edge of the Hellfire, wondering if J-Dog were to jump into it.

Danny swung his legs off the edge of a cliff. He let out a deep sigh. When J-Dog and him had been hunting souls together, before Charlie’s death, J-Dog took him here to show him his favourite place in the human realm.

This was where he’d kissed Charlie for the first time, where they watched sunsets on boring days. J-Dog only ever saw the cliff overlooking the forest in greyscale as a torture demon so Danny took him there in hunter mode. J-Dog had been amazed by the shades of green, the tinges of orange, pink and red at dawn. Danny remembered the look on his friend’s face when he saw all the colours, making the beautiful greyscale cliff, even more stunning in colour. Danny felt a deep sadness for J-Dog.

He’d been so happy, so grateful for Charlie’s love. He’d been living his best life, alongside being a purebred demon. Though his demon pride couldn’t take having a purpose in life. Danny couldn’t help but feel as if it was his fault. He was the one who said wanting a purpose in life, was something for stupid humans. If he hadn’t said it, maybe J-Dog wouldn’t have killed Charlie.

Danny pressed his hand to his chest, the tips of his claws grazing the fabric. He hoped to never know what the void felt like.

“Danny?”

Danny smiled immediately. He let himself fall onto his back to see him standing there, upside down. “Hey.”

“Upside down?” he asked, turning his head. Danny hummed, still stuck in his own thoughts. “I live this life so upside down.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, but if I could turn back the hands of time, I’d never try to change my fate cause it made me who I am today”, Danny wondered. He got up and dusted himself off. “Were you busy?”

“No”, Dylan sighed. “I’m usually busy undoing Charlie’s pranks on my work, but he’s been absent for a few days. I don’t know where he went.”

Danny furrowed his eyebrows, a sad expression on his face and wrapped his arms around Dylan’s shoulders. The angel could feel Danny’s sorrow in his gut and held his breath. “What happened?”

“J-Dog killed his angel”, Danny whispered.

Dylan hesitantly brought his hands up to rest on Danny’s waist. “He… He… _killed_ Charlie?”

Danny hummed affirmatively. Dylan let go of Danny, the news hit him _hard_. “He killed my best friend?”

“I never knew he was capable of something like this. I always thought my demon pride was worse than his because he got along with Charlie from day one and we… Well, we fought a lot at first”, Danny mused. He took Dylan’s hand into his own, hating the devastated sensation emanating from the angel. “But this is exactly why no one knows about you. Well, no one except for Johnny.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment, they're my fuel. Like I said, I have a lot to say about this fic. Kudos to you if you find all HU lyric cameos in this fic.
> 
> Soak Me In Bleach - the title - was taken from Soak Me In Bleach by The Amity Affliction because the chorus of the song goes "When the dreamer dies, so dies the dream. Turn me inside out and soak me in bleach". It refers Charlie and J-Dog as dreamers but J-Dog killed Charlie and that part of himself to kill the dream and resume his meaningless life as a torture demon. Though living with the void, makes being soaked in bleach seem like a good thing.
> 
> What's up with the summary? If you read the summary and THEN you read the fic, you'll realise that the summary, is a letter J-Dog wrote to Charlie after Charlie's death, knowing what it's like to live now, with the void inside.
> 
> I debated on whether or not this fic should've been chaptered or a one-shot. The only reason this fic is a one-shot, is because I couldn't keep readers waiting for weekly cliffhangers, only to find out Charlie's awful fate.
> 
> What's up with the ending? Back in May-June, I had this idea of "I want an evil being to fall in love but kill his beloved at the end when he realises love has made him vulnerable" and so it evolved into J-Dog and Charlie's connection as demon and angel. Sooo no, I couldn't give them a happy ending because the sad ending was written before the story even took shape at all.
> 
> Why J-Dog and Charlie? J-Dog in his AMA video had "demon" written all over his forehead while Charlie's had "giant fucking nerd" written all over it so he became the angel. Hooray for breaking the "Danny is an angel" stereotype.
> 
> As soon as Johnny mentioned J-Dog had changed since he fell in love with the angel, you might've noticed J-Dog's thoughts became less of a lovely tone and more of a toxic sense of possession over Charlie towards the other demons. It was a little hint that Jay was sobering up from his honeymoon phase with Charlie.


End file.
